It's All She Needs
by Nedoko-maki
Summary: Kami-sama had to be either high or drunk off his ass since he sent me to be reincarnated into one of the worst places to live peacefully. I guess there's only one path forward in this insane world if I want to live; and I've still haven't eaten nearly enough BBQ'ed meat buns to sate my craving yet. OC, not exactly SI, pairings undecided so far!
1. Prologue - A Deceitful Dream

Quick disclaimer here: I do **not** own Naruto (I wish, oh I wish), though my OCs are mine.

(Also **SPOILERS,** don't read if you don't want to spoil Naruto, Shippuden included!)

* * *

_**One last thing, this story can and might change in places to optimise what I am trying to convey, among other small tweaks to fit plot points (think of it as a constant rewrite). I'd like to apologise to anyone reading this fanfiction during it's writing phase. **__**I don't exactly adore loose ends, so do tell me when there is some issues with the story's time line. Thank you! **_

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**Prologue**_** – A Deceitful Dream**_

My first thought was that it looked pretty. Like a kaleidoscope.

Prismatic flashes of light flickered on the edges of my consciousness as I stirred.

Short choppy segments of sound made it through the fluffy cotton mess that was my brain, all too loud as I tried to fall asleep again.

My irritation spiked. Don't you hate it when someone wakes you up?

Muttering in dissatisfaction at the cruel world, I opened my eyes and squinted at the harsh light that occupied my vision.

It was already a forgone conclusion; whoever is waking me up will suffer my wrath.

Including the sun, somehow.

More muffled voices that sounded suspiciously like _people_ rang around me. A sense of calm panic set in.

That didn't make sense; I lived alone in my apartment. Has someone broken in?

My eyes adjusted slowly, focusing and unfocusing, looking left and right to see who were in the room. I began to see that the walls were all white, which my apartment's walls was very much not.

Ah. I must be in a hospital.

My brain seemed to finally catch up at that moment, because the smell hit me like a five-ton truck labelled 'Good Morning, here's your daily dose of screw you!'. I recoiled from the nauseatingly sweet smell of chemicals which you'd only find in hospitals.

Dammit, why.

Fixing my slightly blurry eyes at the moving objects, it seemed like several white-clad figures moved around (probably doctors), occupied with whatever medical people do (yup, definitely doctors). I looked around, trying to see where the heck I was, for I couldn't remember the foggiest thing about how I got-

...what?

Oh.

Oh no.

I blinked once. I blinked again (and a few dozen more times just to be sure). I stared long and hard at my hands, or should I say, much _smaller_ hands. A moment later I realised that the two relatively sizeable mounds that were _supposed_ to be on my chest were gone. Emphasis on the 'supposed' part.

Things really didn't seem to add up here, as one does not suddenly wake up with a body that belong to a _preteen_. Furthermore, I was pretty damn sure that I hadn't undergone any sort of breast reduction surgery or I would've definitely noticed. Limbs don't shrink, right?

I then decided to look at the medical equipment that was being used on me, to get some idea of what funky injury I had sustained this time. I froze and surveyed my surroundings in horror. This was because, the last time I checked, there was no place that had this kind of equipment which looked right out of the 60's, nor the weirdly dressed people who I had guessed (correctly I might add) were doctors.

Wait.

My stomach started to sink as I scrutinised the so-called doctors from where I sat.

Doctors don't wear that in conventional hospitals, much less what were on their sleeves. My dread was not unfounded as I recognised that symbol, etched into my mind long ago, from when I was thirteen and reading a certain ninja's manga. _A swirl on a leaf, the universal symbol for Konoha._

What were doctors doing with those emblems on their sleeves? Is it some kind of cosplay? Maybe they are just really big fans of the series?

That alone made me redouble my efforts in remembering what in the absolute hell I was doing beforehand. The fog had to then decide to clear a bit, as I recalled running through a dark, claustrophobic-inducing alley. Terror pooled in my stomach as I figured out what had happened.

No.

A dark assailant darting towards me, eyes glinting manically.

_No._

The glint of metal as a silver arc of death flew towards me. There was a sharp, agonising _pain_ as I collapsed from my leg being slashed. The pure, crimson **red** surrounded me as the pain throbbed from my leg.

_Nononono-_

The loss of the sense of feeling from my body as the spots on my vision grew and enveloped me in darkness.

This isn't happening. _It can't_, it-

_(Oh, but it is, my dear friend. Hehe~)_

But I was going to-

No, I haven't said goodby-

Why me? _Why-_

**I died.**

My world crashed down around my shoulders spectacularly from those two words alone.

The _crushing _pain shortly followed as I realised that everyone was gone, _dead_, only for **me** to mourn over them, alone.

_(Isn't that nice?)_

If the nurse didn't notice then, she sure as hell did now as I started hyperventilating. She looked around and panicked, hastily administering me a dose of sedatives as tears poured out my eyes. As the darkness crept over my vision, I vaguely saw two figures approaching me while saying something garbled, warped.

They embraced me and calmed me with soothing words and warmth. The bliss of darkness claimed me soon afterwards, my eyelids drooping closed.

No one would see the painful, raw **red** as her eyes shut.

* * *

Well! Chapter 1 of IASN!

This_ is_ my first fanfiction so I'd appreciate any advice on how to write better, for you guys.

You'll see me again soon (I think, maybe. Damn finals)!

\- _Maki-sensei_

* * *

_**SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY**_


	2. Chapter 1 - With a pinch of salt

_**Chapter 1 – With a pinch of salt**_

She could say this for certain: god must truly _hate_ her right now. I mean, leave her alone: she didn't ask for another god-forsaken life after the last one! Shinigami, _why_ pull the strings on this one?

She also could say that she hadn't cried like that in…what, five years? It was actually rather cathartic, in a morbid way. She was a fully-grown woman of age 30 damnit!

...well in mind anyway.

Her heart throbbed painfully when she recalled her previous life. Blinking furiously, she rubbed her eyes to stop the oncoming waterworks. (Definitely not crying. Yup.)

Muttering some unspeakable obscenities about meddling gods and their meddling actions, she sat up and shifted her position so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed. A small mirror on the wooden stand next to her bed showed a young, black haired girl with matching murky onyx eyes. Huh. She noted dimly that she had a small cowlick on top of her unruly dark hair.

Ignoring the baby fat on her face, she'd say in her oh-so-humble opinion that she looked rather…_cute_.

Shaking her head quickly, she wondered then what her name was, after all everybody has a name right? Glancing at the plaque next to her bed were a few mysterious symbols, "うちは まゆえ."

Great. Bloody _Japanese._ She hadn't done so much as _look_ at any Japanese for a good decade or so since she left...

Quickly diverting her thoughts, she tried reading the familiar yet foreign characters again.

Ma-yu-e U-chi-ha…

Mayue Uchiha.

Uchiha.

_Uchiha_.

Where did she hear of that before?

Wait.

…Please no. Let it be a dream.

She borderline ripped the white curtains open, the bright light of day slightly blinding her as she stared outside.

A large city, no, _village_ met her eyes, something out of a certain loud ninja's manga she had read nearly two decades ago. She would never admit it, but she was rather smitten with the story at the time.

In any case, the newly christened Uchiha Mayue decided that it was a good time to swear.

_"F%!#_._"_

* * *

Coincidentally, a nurse overheard her not too flattering curses and quickly apprehended her before she pulled 'a ninja,' as they called it. Apparently, it involved, 1. Getting out of the bed, 2. Walking up to the window, and 3. Jumping out of the aforementioned window and booking it out of the premises.

Not that she could do that, though she sorely wished she could. These four white walls were getting infuriatingly boring.

The nurse also informed her that she was suffering from a head injury, which was why she was in hospital at the moment. What a convenient excuse; amnesia.

Not a second too soon, a raven-haired man and woman rushed in and started asking about her well-being.

"Are you alright?"

"Did they give you enough food and water?"

"Oh Mayue, we need to get you to a bath!"

She sweatdropped as didn't even get a word in edgewise until the verbal onslaught was over, not that she minded: If her memory served her right, this was a sight to behold, for the Uchiha were the clan with the biggest sticks up their collective backsides, only rivalled by the stuffy stuck-up _Hyūgas_.

Was hell freezing over right now?

Putting that aside, she guessed that these two were her…well, Mayue's parents. Not hers.

Leaving those feelings on the backburner for the moment, she sighed and resigned herself to being doted on. She hadn't been _doted _on for so long she barely even remembered the last she was.

'Well, it could be worse,' she thought, a small smile adorning her face as she was unceremoniously carted off to the Uchiha's bathhouse.

Does she need to say that ninja-jumping through the air feels _amazing_? Faintly she heard shouting from the window as they sped across the village. She realised with a start that they had ran (escaped) from the hospital, not that she disagreed about it, not one bit.

It was awfully boring there after all.

* * *

The water was crystal blue. She stared at the odd sight. Since when all onsen or baths have clear crystal water? She shook her head as she thought it must be a 'Naruto' thing.

It also made her feel strangely self-conscious, as she was rather…exposed. The idea of someone spying on her in the water made her involuntarily shiver.

* * *

In a neighbouring town, a certain white-haired pervert sneezed and fell out of his tree. He then cursed the person who had interrupted his 'research' and started running like his life depended on it from the hordes of furious women clamouring for his head on a stick.

* * *

(Must be my imagination.)

The sensation of her tense muscles relaxing was heavenly, a stark contrast from what had happened in the last few days. The time in the onsen was also a good time to get her thoughts in order.

She sank into the clear water and watched her hair spread and fan out, rippling with the waves she made.

There was a weird, but not uncomfortable thrumming throughout her body, like an dormant energy just waiting to be released. So this is chakra? She tried fiddling with it, but it seemed to be unperturbed by her attempts at drawing it out. Cheapskate.

...she couldn't prolong ignoring the elephant in the room anymore.

She was in the Narutoverse.

...

Yeah, that was a tough pill to swallow.

On the brighter side, she was an Uchiha…

A wave of guilt and revulsion came over her. Putting it bluntly, she felt dirty; this wasn't…her. This was Mayue, someone else, who had had a life before this.

And she'd taken it away. (How could you?)

Sophie didn't belong here, Mayue did. Did she even _deserve_ to take up her name? (No.)

Did she have the right? (No.)

* * *

_A/N_: Some vocab to fill you in if you didn't know!

_onsen_ – 'An _onsen_ (温泉) is a Japanese hot spring; the term also extends to cover the bathing facilities and traditional inns frequently situated around a hot spring.' - Wikipedia

_uchiha_ – A slightly different way of saying uchiwa, or paper fan. A reference to a paper fan fanning (see what I did there? No?) the flames. (Which is why they are predominantly fire natured!)

* * *

Going to need some angst here to build up her character (sorry ;-;). A bit next chapter, but that will end pretty soon. Here marks the Academy Arc!

Also, yes, I really like Cowboy Bebop. Einstein is bae, must be protecc-ed, period.

-Maki

EDIT: Quick clarification here, she just feels like she doesn't deserve to take over somebody else's life (where they might've lived a lot longer) and also feels like she doesn't belong in that world, but she resolves this guilt later on! Can't have that perpetual angst in _this_ fanfic, nope, nuh-uh!

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_**YOU'RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT**_


	3. Chapter 2 - Acceptance

_**Chapter 3 – Step by step**_

The week seemed to fly by, since I had decided to fully dedicate my time into getting down the Academy Three, _**Kawarimi**_, _**Bunshin**_ and _**Henge**_. (Baby steps, you don't run when you can't even _walk._)

Moulding chakra didn't seem very difficult now, it felt like it was a stiff muscle that just hadn't been used in some time. And as such, it wasn't so difficult to perform the _**Henge**_. On the other hand, the remaining two were slightly trickier.

They needed a bit more control to perform them successfully, and I could see why Naruto struggled with the _**Bunshin**_; it was necessary to have a certain degree of chakra control so that you could have smaller details on the clone. The better control, the more details. Really explains why Naruto's clones in the manga turned out to be lifeless white blobs, it was comparable to a sprinkler and a firefighter's hose.

_**Kawarimi **_or Substitution and _**Bunshin**_ both need a similar level of chakra control; to substitute yourself with an inanimate object, you would push out your chakra in a steady stream and try to grab the object with your chakra rope and _pull_. This might be also why Naruto never actually performed Kawarimi in the manga as well. Huh.

Going off on a tangent, did you know that Mayue's parents are the sweetest things _ever_? You wouldn't think that they are some prideful Uchiha (well, not as much), but an ordinary ninja couple. As far as ordinary goes for ninjas anyway.

I am truly lucky to have them as the people who I live with; they have accepted that I may never recover my non-existent memories of before, and don't treat me any different for it. Unfortunately, other people of my (now large) family seemed to not have received my message and treat me as if I was glass, even after I told them not to. Again.

I do appreciate what they are doing for me, but my intrinsic chaotic nature doesn't allow me to be a 'Little-Miss-Perfect', or a dainty damsel in distress all the time. Instead, I choose to abuse my 'I'm still a little kid' card to the limits.

Oh, you know Shisui? My cousin twice removed who is nearly a decade older than me or something? Even though what he was doing was rather nice (offering to help me with my chores was very gentlemanly, I must say), I am an independent woma-_cough_-girl. So, I decided to get my revenge. (I asked _nicely._)

His reaction nearly brought a tear to my eye as the house designated with washing the Uchiha's clothes was flooded with white, pearly bubbles. The reprimanding I got from Shisui was totally worth it.

"Why." He fixed me with a hard stare.

"Why what?" I responded, the embodiment of innocence present on my face, the only thing betraying my true feelings was a twitch of my lips.

"You know what!" he snapped, then sighed and rubbed his eyes, "alright _fine_, I'll start treating you as if you are a bratty little girl, which is _very_ much true. Happy now?"

"Yes, Shisui-_niichan_. Very much so~," I purred, a twinkle in my eyes.

Shisui groaned and tried to abate the oncoming migraine. "Okay, what is it. You never call me that unless there is something you want from me or you have done something very, very wrong."

"Well Shisui-_niichan, _I may or may not have…opened the windows? There are maybe _some _bubbles outside that _probably_ will cause a teensy-tiny mess. Probably." The grin I wore likely surpassed the Cheshire Cat's as I watched on in with amusement.

Uchiha Shisui, the man with the moniker, 'Shisui of the Body Flicker,' who had lived through the Third Shinobi War, made _Jōnin_ only a mere two years later, almost _whimpered._

"You're pure evil, I'm telling you, _pure_ _evil_," he moaned as he finally cracked and tried to curl himself into nothingness.

"Whatever you think, Shisui-niichan_. _After all you _are _my favourite cousin~," I hummed contently as I stroked his hair (it is _really_ soft!).

This time he really did whimper.

* * *

Holding my hands in the snake seal, I shouted out, "_**Kawarimi**__!_"

The feeling of the now familiar pull of chakra was present as the world seemed to flash briefly. I then promptly fell out of a nearby tree unceremoniously, disoriented from the sudden change of locations.

Cursing every god that has bequeathed me this misfortune, I got up while rubbing my back. Tumbling from a tree is no small injury, my backside can attest to that.

As the pain subsided, I flipped my hands through the two seals required for the **Bunshin**. A near-perfect copy of me appeared in a puff of smoke, causing me to cough slightly as I waved it away. I narrowed my eyes in frustration as I saw the state of my hair on the other me.

"Rats. There's tiny twigs and leaves in the travesty which is my hair, _again_," I grumbled while trying to extract the offending pieces of organic material.

I sighed and resolved to clean my hair later in the house's bathroom. Don't exactly _want_ people to see what happened to my hair, as tomboyish I am, I still like to keep up some measure of appearances. I chuckled when I thought about Shisui's reaction if I went, he'd be _so_ frustrated about it. "Act like an actual girl!" or "What did you do this time Mayue?"

You know what, I think I might have a slight sadistic streak.

…nah that's just my imagination. I must just like teasing him.

Hmm, you know, since I _am_ changing Canon, I might as well try to find the **Kage Bunshin** technique and teach it to Naruto. Not that finding it will be easy.

Classified as a B-rank kinjutsu, famous for its heavy chakra drain when used. Apparently, people have _died _using it. No wonder it's not floating around the lower levels of the Library.

A thought crossed my mind that made my lips curl upwards. I always did like a good challenge. Even if the odds were a thousand to one, I would still take my chances. Foolish, yes, but nobody got anywhere from doing nothing.

_I wonder, would they notice a missing Kage Bunshin scroll? _

And so, my little night time heist to the Library was decided.

* * *

Okay, so I maybe didn't think this through as well as I thought. I got to give them credit, ANBU are much, _much _better than I thought. And that didn't bode well for me.

I crawled up the wall in the shadow of the building, trying to avoid any wandering eyes that might spot me in the moonlight. I really hoped that I suppressed my chakra signature well enough, or I was going to have a one-way trip to T&I. Oh joy.

Reaching the windowsill of the Jōnin section of the Library, which was on the fourth floor, I started flipping the signs for a **Kawarimi.** Reassured by the pull of chakra, even if a bit weak, I substituted with an unsuspecting book that was on the floor.

I sighed in relief when I landed on the floor lightly. I hadn't known if I could substitute with objects through solid surfaces, and I couldn't really go around practising that and have people putting two and two together. It wasn't the easiest swap I've done though; it must be difficult for chakra to pass through objects, which sucked.

Putting those thoughts aside for the moment, I flicked on the small torchlight that I had brought with me, I started looking for the section that started with **'Ka**', when I heard a faraway swishing which caused my heart to beat even louder.

Hastily turning off the light, I silently sat there praying that nobody had noticed the light I had been liberally waving around. Why did I think they'd _not_ patrol the Library at this time of night?

...Oh right. _Ninjas_, the people who possess insane amounts of stamina, have more paranoid thoughts canned up than a civilian has in a _lifetime,_ and can probably stay up for well over three days.

It felt like hours but probably was only several minutes before I started moving again, my eyes now well-adjusted to the dark. I strained to read the small titles on each scroll, before quietly crawling to the next section.

I heard another, more pronounced rustle in the section behind me, and my heart nearly stopped.

It sure felt like it, because the time it took for me to turn around felt like it took_ twice_ as long. Blinking in surprise as I saw nothing but empty space where I believed the sounds to be. The tell-tale call of an owl hooting rang out, followed by a swoosh, which indicated it had taken off.

That wasn't the biggest shock; everything seemed to be…clearer, brighter.

Clearer and brighter...where have I heard that before? Now that I looked at it, time seemed to be flowing at a completely different pace; it was like trying to wade through some non-existent water. Hold up, isn't this the Sharingan?

_Did I just awaken the Sharingan from my own self-imposed stress and an __**owl**__, of all things? _

Apparently yes, yes I did.

Wiping the perspiration off the surface of my forehead, I sighed and quickly spotted the scroll I was looking for. Grabbing it brusquely, I skimmed over it swiftly, the instructions seared into my mind thanks to my fancy red eyes, and promptly placed it back where it had been and made my way to the window again. (I don't need to steal a scroll whose contents I know already, obviously.)

As I was flipping through the seals for **Kawarimi**, on the edge of my peripheral vision I spotted a fleeting flash of chakra. Staring at the spot where it had been, I shook my head and activated the jutsu.

'Must be my imagination,' I thought absentmindedly as I made my getaway and returned home covertly, 'it is rather late after all.'

All that remained from my adventure was a single, fluttering green leaf.

* * *

_**Omake**_

Kakashi wandered the streets late at night, internally crying waterfalls of tears. It wasn't often that _the _Kakashi of the Sharingan lost his beloved Icha Icha Paradise.

When he felt that all hope was lost, he found himself in front of the Library. Snorting in derision about how those books weren't _real_ literature, he started turning around but was halted by a book, which came whistling down and smacked the silver-haired man on the head with a resounding thud.

Picking up the offending book, Kakashi looked at the cover and cried in relief when he realised it was his precious. He hugged the small orange book and stood there for hours, cooing apologies to the now found book.

He was so engrossed with reacquainting himself with the (quite scandalous) literature that he never noticed a lone Academy student make her getaway from the Library.

* * *

_A/N_: Some vocab to fill you in if you didn't know!

**Bunshin** – Clone

**Kawarimi **– Substitution

**Henge **– Transformation

**Kage Bunshin** – Shadow Clone

* * *

So yeah. Had to fit it in somewhere, and she _did_ activate her Sharingan at the end of the Prologue so I believed that it would be easier to activate it later. She's also going to discover the joys of _chakra exhaustion_. Anyway, see you next time!

-Maki **~-=+ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ**

* * *

_**YOU'RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT**_


	4. Chapter 3 - Step by step

_**Chapter 4 – New faces, old wounds**_

Oh joy. _Chakra exhaustion_, the bane of my flipping life at the moment. It felt like someone had sucked all the strength out of my body, causing me lethargy and a bit of immobility. The weakening of my body, and conversely my immune system, had caused me to catch a very bad cold.

If you didn't know, Chakra is a mix of spiritual and physical energy. There are chakra reserves, which are the 'jutsu tanks' of chakra, and then there is the 'reserve tank' or 'body tank' of chakra, which is the minimum amount of chakra needed to keep you alive.

I _think_ I have more spiritual energy, since it is derived from the mind, and mine is twenty years ahead of development. It might explain my astonishingly good control over shape transformation, if I remember correctly from one of the Academy's lectures.

Now that I think about it, if I didn't know how to turn off my accursed eyes, I'd probably be dead. Isn't that a bunch of sunshine and rainbows?

Of course, my parents wanted to know why I was currently bedridden with a severe fever. In my half-cognizant unfocused state, I just _had_ to decided to answer honestly (because that was such a good idea), saying that, "oh yes, it's because I opted to take a jaunt over to the library to steal some kinjutsu in the middle of the night because _I felt like it."_

On a side-note, I really didn't want them knowing I had the Sharingan yet; explaining that one was going to be a tough cookie.

Fortunately, in the end they chalked it up to my rather delusional condition and let me rest.

Albeit all the crap life has put me through, I still somehow have oddly good luck.

They commented that Shisui, Itachi and Sasuke had come by to give her get well soon presents. (Of course, Shisui came just so I wouldn't bug him later about how he was such a heartless person.) I was rather pleased but was too tired to verbalise it, so I hummed in acknowledgement before succumbing to the dark.

The last thing I remembered before passing out was my mother tucking me into bed properly, a gentle, loving smile on her face.

And then I was falling, down and down.

* * *

_Knock._

_Knock knock. _

Blearily rubbing my eyes, I yawned and sat up. I surveyed my surroundings and oh-ed in surprise.

This was certainly not what I had been expecting. The sole reason why I wasn't freaking out like any good ninja would is because I had never been much of a morning person. Fatal if I don't correct that later, but right now I was an Academy student. I can afford to laze around a bit.

And as such, it took me a few minutes before my brain finally kick-started and I promptly started panicking. I didn't recognise the room I was in; it was peculiarly familiar somehow…

Hold on.

This was _my _room. As in the pale violet coloured bedroom I grew up in, back in _England_. A wave of nostalgia passed over me as I heard the bells of Big Ben go off in the distance, and saw the many toys and books littered messily across the floor.

What was I doing here?

…was it all a just a bad dream then?

"_Open the bloody door already!"_

Groaning in exasperation, I rolled off my bed before making my way to the door and opening it.

What greeted my eyes was quite the shock.

A young girl, who had messy black hair that reached her shoulders and two murky black eyes, dressed fully in _kunoichi_ garb, was standing outside tapping her foot in impatience.

_Well, there goes my hope of that being a very elaborate hallucination then. Pity. _

"Finally. Took you long enough," the youth huffed in exasperation. She proceeded to waltz in and plop herself onto one of the two pale violet beanbags I had that acted as seats. I stood there, uncomprehending for a few seconds, before closing the doors slowly and sitting down on the other beanbag.

She was strangely familiar as well.

"Do I know you?"

She stared, then doubled over laughing.

"Y-you haven't realised yet? Kami, you're dense," she chortled, then breathed in to steady herself.

"I am _not_ dense!" I protested, but she had already moved on. "Rude brat," I muttered, but she just ignored me.

Humming in consideration, she said, "this should do it."

Looking me in the eyes, her two dark irises swirled into an instantly recognisable ruby red, with two spinning tomoe in each eye.

"You're…Mayue?"

"The one and only," she grinned.

I looked down at my form. I'm…Sophie again, long brown hair and all. Guess I didn't notice the red glasses perched on my nose, nor the two orbs on my chest the moment I woke up. Realising what that meant, I panicked and said, "I-I'm _so _sorry for taking over your body and-"

"Hey, none of that. I don't mind."

I gaped, open mouthed at her flippant tone, "y-you don't _mind_? You do realise that I've taken over your life, essentially?"

She frowned in contemplation. "Well, I have forgiven you, I guess. Not that I mind much anymore, not since I looked at your memories that were about the future."

After deliberating for a few seconds, she said finally, "you know what, I think it is for the best. Me and you."

"What? What do you me-"

I started talking, but Mayue cut me off. "Hear me out please. We don't have much time in here."

"Where is _here_?"

"Your mindscape," she said dismissively, "anyway, I've been here, subconsciously not letting you accept who you are in my body."

I opened my mouth, but she put a finger on my lips to stop me. "The only real reason why I'm still here is because I still have attachments to my world, namely my dreams and my family," she explained.

She took in a deep breath. "I believe you can fulfil the dreams I wouldn't have fulfilled; protecting the family and Konoha."

The black-haired girl looked down while smiling, eyes slightly vacant, "it feels kind of disappointing, knowing that I wouldn't have lived past my graduation." Blinking, breaking out of her trance, she looked back up locked eyes with the older girl. "That's why I'm trusting you with my dreams. Protect Sasuke and Itachi, along with Konoha. Please."

"What about your parents, the rest of your family?"

She sighed and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "I've been thinking about that. I don't think you can do much about that without revealing too much. I feel conflicted, honestly; when I'm gone, I don't want to be alone."

"But, they're you _parents_! Can't we do something about-"

"Stop Sophie; it's fine." She reassured me with a bittersweet smile (it's not fine), then grinned at me with a tinge of hopelessness, "after all, you can't do anything if you're locked up in a T&I cell."

She stood up and stretched her arms, and then walked to the door. I hadn't noticed it before, but her body was already starting to become ghostly.

"Well Soph, it seems my time is up," Mayue sighed, then gave me the brightest smile she could muster up, "take care of them, can you promise me that?"

I silently straightened myself and walked right up to her. I hugged her as hard as I could.

"I promise you that I will take care of them in your stead," I whispered tearfully.

"Oh goody, you know you can't break your promises, you know?" Mayue said cheekily as she laughed shortly, then smiled gently at my sobbing form.

"Thank you for everything, Sophie. Go change the world. I'll still be right there, in your heart."

All that was left was a few shed tears and the soft echoes of her last words.

Sophie Beckett made a promise that day, that she'd protect all who she held dear.

No matter what.

* * *

A few days after, once I had fully recovered from my chakra depletion I decided to carry on with my ninjutsu practice; it was relatively late in the day, and it was far too late for me to go to attend the Academy.

So once again, I was out in one of the Uchiha training grounds again, mastering the Academy Three jutsu.

'Having a trump card would be nice,' I pondered as I moulded the chakra inside my body, 'might as well try to get one early on. Something like that'd help me get through the Chūnin exams for example.'

After casting my jutsu, yet another **Bunshin** appeared before me.

Was it strange that I could perform the Academy Three jutsus without hand seals now? I_ do_ recall them saying something about how you need less and less hand seals the more you use a jutsu, until eventually you don't need them at all.

I mean, at some point everybody has to master the Academy Three to perfection and execute them without hand seals. The enemy isn't going to wait to skewer you while you flip through the hand seals for **Kawarimi**.

Maybe I naturally just have good chakra control; for example Sakura _did_ have near-perfect control, she even accomplished the tree walking exercise successfully _on the first time_.

Sighing tiredly, I flopped down on the grass and stared at the passing clouds. I wonder if Shikamaru is doing the same right now, lazing off in the shade of some tree in the Nara clan's grounds. I wouldn't be surprised.

The **Kage Bunshin** I had created earlier grumbled at my idleness as it practised created more **Bunshin**s around me.

"Damn lackadaisical original…" it muttered, while tagging on some more unflattering things about me.

"Oh shush," I scolded…it? Me?

**Kage Bunshin**s are confusing. Hugely useful though, easily multiplying my experience in practicing something, so I decided to learn it as quickly as I could after my little tryst with the Library. Admittedly, it wasn't very wise of me to use so much chakra again, and nearly put me back in bed, but with my control it wasn't so hard to master.

One of the upsides of being an Uchiha is that my chakra reserves are pretty large for my age, I probably could pull off one or two _B__-ranks_ before collapsing, perhaps one A-rank on a good day, comparable to an experienced genin. Not that I was going to test that; chakra exhaustion really sucks.

At any rate, I couldn't teach the technique to Naruto if I didn't know how to do it myself.

Suddenly, an idea crossed my mind. A stupid, dumb idea. Despite the idiocy of the thought, to me, it was a _challenge_. And I didn't turn down challenges if I couldn't help it. Like, for example, making my beloved cousin weep!

What? No, I'm just teasing him. (wink)

Well, there just isn't anyone else really worth teasing, to be honest. Itachi is out and about, doing ANBU-y things and isn't so closely related that we spend a lot of time together. We met briefly after Sasuke mentioned me a few times at their dinner table apparently.

I was rather flattered, I must say. It was, on the other hand, rather disconcerting having an (obviously) overprotective older brother studying me for the duration of that whole meal. I can actually imagine the thought process he was going through.

'Is she a threat?', 'what is she doing around my younger brother?', 'maybe she's trying to _seduce_ him?!'

…okay maybe the last one was slightly (very) exaggerated, but it was clear as day what he was thinking about me.

Alright, despite being a part of ANBU, the emotionless masked freaks who don't so much as _twitch_ when you crack the most funny bone-tickling jokes, when it came to his brother, you could tell from the look in his eyes he was going to take _drastic_ measures to keep him safe. It was that tiny bit of insanity all good ninjas have.

It was quite adorable, in my opinion.

Wait, does this make me a cradle robber if I find him a bit attractive?

He was only a year senior to me physically, but I'm mentally nearly _two decades_ older than him. There might've been some relationships in my old world where there'd been two-decade age differences, but…

My face was dusted with a light pink as I hastily stopped my thought process.

I sat up and thought about Itachi's indifferent poker face he wore during the few times I had met him.

Oh ho? I see that another challenge has made itself known. I cackled with glee thinking about all the ways I could crack that stony façade of his.

_Let's see how long he can resist my pranking and teasing. _

And speaking about challenges and secret trump-card techniques, a smirk on my face as I wondered,

'what would they say,' I thought as I stood up, 'if they saw _the_ signature jutsu of the Fourth Hokage?'

I mean, I do feel a bit bad that I am essentially learning a family technique without Naruto's permission, but I think he'll be fine with it. I think.

I stretched my body, arms behind my head and began thinking about where I could buy balloons and rubber balls without arousing too much suspicion…there _was_ a chance Jiraiya or Kakashi were wandering around in Konoha and might coincidentally spot me. I'm only a lowly Academy student after all.

An Academy student who is mentally older by twenty years.

And knows about some rather important, world changing events in the future.

…yup, just your average Academy student.

Yawning tiredly, I ambled towards home.

_I wonder what's for dinner. _

* * *

Well, it was bound to happen at some point…who was she kidding? They knew the exact moment she _approached_ Naruto. Or it could be her more-than-slightly-illegal activities she had done a few nights ago. She _really _hoped it wasn't to do with anything about her mysteriously knowing exactly how to learn the Yondaime's prized jutsu.

That'd mean that she would need to explain things that didn't add up _at all_, most likely in a T&I interrogation room.

Anyhow, now they want to know what's up with her.

Damn ANBU.

So yes, here she was, standing in front of the flipping Hokage, military dictator of the whole _village_. Calling her 'nervous' was the understatement of the century; scrap that, she was downright terrified.

Deciding to count sheep to calm herself, she tried to start counting them before realising the imaginary fence had been surprisingly set on fire and was burning down, poor sheep running amok around said fence.

You probably could guess that her mental state wasn't very stable at that moment. She winced and silently apologised to the now tenderly-fried lamb chops. Poor sheep.

Noticing her state of discomfort and how far into her anxiety she was, he lightly coughed into his hand to get her attention. When that failed, he asked, "Uchiha Mayue-san, do you know why you are here?"

She fidgeted under his knowing gaze, and looked down, "n-not exactly Hokage-sama."

If she didn't before, the young girl believed it now; all parents had this power that made children feel guilty.

He sighed and stood up, then strolled to the window behind his chair, which overlooked the whole of Konoha. He got out his pipe and lit it with a katon jutsu.

"Mayue-san, what do you think a Hokage does?"

Internally opting for a more childish view as an answer for the Hokage, she replied, "uhm, a Hokage fights bad people?"

He chuckles and turned back to look at her. "Yes, even though I haven't done so in quite some time, as you say, I did use to go around 'fighting the bad people'."

He paused, then said, "but a Hokage's job, first and foremost, is the well-being of the village. Do you recognise what I'm saying?"

She reluctantly nodded. "Is this because I snuck into the Library? A breach of information can potentially put the village in danger. For that I apologise deeply Hokage-sama."

He blinked twice, baffled at her over-polite outburst. before bursting out in raucous laughter. "Y-you broke into the _L-library_?" he wheezed, "how come I haven't heard of this?"

Mayue went red with embarrassment when she realised that she'd unintentionally let the cat out of the bag.

When his peals of mirth had subsided, he gathered himself despite the smile refusing to leave his face.

"Well, that was the most genuinely amusing thing I have heard in a long, long time," he admitted, a wistful expression on his face, before blinking again and hardening his expression.

"Hokage-sama? If that's not it, then wh-"

"Uchiha Mayue, don't try what you did again. Breaking curfew in a hidden village without permission will have serious repercussions on you and your family. Understand?"

"Yes Hokage-sama," the dark-haired girl said as she looked away sheepishly.

"The _real_ reason why you are here is because of our local fox." He looked carefully for any visible reaction to his words. And unfortunately for her, she was still a novice at the lying game, whereas he was a seasoned expert, and so she couldn't hide the truth from his prying eyes.

The slight widening of her eyes and the slight hitch in her breath gave her away.

"So, you figured it out," he sighed, "don't spread that information around. That's S-rank classified information, punishable by death."

His eyes narrowed. "You may be acting nice to Naruto for now, but my trust isn't as easy to earn. I already consider you a ninja if you managed to break into the Library, so if you move so much as one step out of line, you'll be locked in a cell faster than most _ANBU_ can **Shunshin**."

Indignation and panic swelled in her chest. In a haze of panic, for a second, Mayue completely forgot all about social etiquette and who she was talking to. Logic and reason seemed like faraway, muddled concepts in her state of alarm.

After all, she can't lose another one, not another person she considered _family_. She wouldn't be able to handle not seeing Naruto's heart-wrenchingly innocent and bright smiles anymore.

Accordingly, she snapped back at him angrily as she crossed her arms, "Naruto is the happiest child I have ever seen despite the horrors that I can't even imagine the civilians put him through. I would _die_ before thinking about harming him. Believe it!"

He looked long and hard at her eyes before nodding slowly. "…Then I trust you will take care of him properly. Do what I have failed to do because of this cursed position."

She exhaled in relief, all the tension draining away from her at once.

Even though the Hokage's hat was burdened with many duties (and paperwork), he lifted an eyebrow, as he remarked, "Naruto must be rubbing off on you. 'Believe it'?"

Mayue's face flushed a deep crimson when she realised that she'd talked back to the _Hokage_, in the most disrespectful tone possible, and to top it all off, she had copied Naruto's infamous verbal tick, 'Believe it!'.

She fixed the aged Sarutobi with an all-too-sweet smile. "You won't mention that slip of my tongue ever again, won't you? And if you do, I promise you that Naruto pranking you is the _least_ painful thing that will happen to you. _Capiche_?"

"Yes, I know," he gave a slightly strained smile as a shiver went down his spine, "now get some rest, we've been here talking for far too long for my age. Dismissed."

"Thank you Hokage-sama," she curtly responded, leaving the room quickly.

A moment later, after Mayue had left, a cat-masked ANBU appeared behind the Hokage, with one knee down and fist flat on the floor. "Was it wise to allow her to learn the **Kage Bunshin** technique, Hokage-sama?"

"I'm sure she'll need it at some point," he murmured while still looking over the village. He turned around and blanched. "My paperwork has multiplied. Again."

He fell to his knees and cried out to the heavens, "Curse you Minato!"

The hidden ANBU in the room just sweatdropped at his antics, all thinking 'how hasn't he figured out the trick yet?'.

They weren't going to tell him, of course. Besides, the 'Professor' had to live up to his name.

* * *

It wasn't until Mayue was well outside the building before she let herself sag in exhaustion. Heaving a sigh, she started walking in the direction of Training Ground Three.

She needed to pay her respects to someone.

After making her way to the tall, black stone shape that was the Memorial Stone, she spotted a masked hunched-over figure squatting in front of the monument. His mask's design resembled some sort of canine, while his hair was a silvery grey.

She knew exactly who he was, but didn't disturb him; it wouldn't be right for her to interrupt his mourning, as much as she wanted to slap some sense into him.

Kneeling, she silently got out a fan that had the uchiwa engraved on it and gently placed it in the quietly smoking incense burner that was next the other daily offerings that were in front of the stone.

"You're awfully young to be here."

Even though his voice slightly startled her, she answered mildly, "doesn't one come here when they have lost a comrade or loved one?"

He doesn't answer for a minute.

"Yes. Though I didn't think that someone as young as you could lose a close friend or comrade yet. You haven't even become a ninja yet."

She chuckled mirthlessly as she lit the top of the fan with one of the other incense sticks and watched it slowly smoulder. "I didn't either. She didn't even get her name engraved here for what she did, because she was still a civilian. The wooden fan barely replaces it."

He glanced at the fan that was gradually burning away. "Family?"

Giving him a small smile, she replied, "Close as any person I consider family, Hound-san."

Once the all the wood had been turned to ash, she stretched her legs and stood up. "It was nice talking with you, Hound-san. The name's Mayue, if you didn't know. Uchiha Mayue."

As she was leaving the grounds, she paused, then called out to him. "I hope you can forgive yourself and move on. That's what they would have wanted."

This time he didn't answer.

'I wonder if I can find Naruto so that I can eat ramen with him,' she mused as she headed towards the Ichiraku ramen stand, 'it is quite lonely if you eat comfort food by yourself.'

* * *

_A/N_: Some vocab to fill you in if you didn't know!

-sama – suffix used to denote people of higher status, or someone you hold in high regard.

_kunoichi_ – a kunoichi is a female ninja or practitioner of ninjutsu (ninpo).

_Kami_ – literally meaning 'god'. Just using it here because I thought it'd be more appropriate, I guess. I could've used 'Jashin' instead though. Hm.

_dōjutsu _– literally 'eye techniques', meaning techniques that need fancy hax eyes like the Byakugan, for example, to perform.

_hitai-ate_ – forehead protector, usually used to show village association.

_Yondaime _– literally meaning 'the Fourth', used in Naruto to denote the fourth generation of Kage. In this instance it's the Hokage.

* * *

Well sh*#. That was a lot of writing. There is a lot of spare scenes and ideas I haven't even implemented yet. SO much to do but not enough time… (exams, internal groan)

Anyhow, next chapter will probably expand on her fellow classmates' relationships, and more Naruto, Sasuke and co.

-Maki ~-=+ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

* * *

_**SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY**_


	5. Chapter 4 - New faces, old wounds

_**Chapter 4 – New faces, old wounds**_

Oh joy. _Chakra exhaustion_, the bane of my flipping life at the moment. It felt like someone had sucked all the strength out of my body, causing me lethargy and a bit of immobility. The weakening of my body, and conversely my immune system, had caused me to catch a very bad cold.

If you didn't know, Chakra is a mix of spiritual and physical energy. There are chakra reserves, which are the 'jutsu tanks' of chakra, and then there is the 'reserve tank' of chakra, which is the minimum amount of chakra needed to keep you alive.

I _think_ I have more spiritual energy, since it is derived from the mind, and mine is twenty years ahead of development. It might explain my astonishingly good control over shape transformation, if I remember correctly from one of the Academy's lectures.

Now that I think about it, if I didn't know how to turn off my accursed eyes, I'd probably be dead. Isn't that just a bunch of sunshine and rainbows?

Of course, my parents wanted to know why I was currently bedridden with a severe fever. In my half-cognizant unfocused state, I just _had_ to decided to answer honestly (because that was such a good idea), saying that, "oh yes, it's because I opted to take a jaunt over to the library to steal some kinjutsu in the middle of the night because _I felt like it."_

On a side-note, I really didn't want them knowing I had the Sharingan yet; explaining that one was going to be a tough cookie.

Fortunately, in the end they chalked it up to my rather delusional condition and let me rest.

Albeit all the crap life has put her through, she somehow has oddly good luck.

They commented that Shisui, Itachi and Sasuke had come by to give her get well soon presents. (Of course, Shisui came just so she wouldn't bug him later about how he was such a heartless person.) She was rather pleased but was too tired to verbalise it, so she hummed in acknowledgement before succumbing to the dark.

The last thing she remembered before passing out was her mother tucking her into bed properly, a loving smile on her face.

And then she was falling, down and down.

* * *

_Knock._

_Knock knock. _

Blearily rubbing my eyes, I yawned and sat up. I surveyed my surroundings and oh-ed in surprise.

This was certainly not what I had been expecting. The sole reason why I wasn't freaking out like any good ninja would is because I had never been much of a morning person. Fatal if I don't correct that later, but right now I was an Academy student. I can afford to laze around a bit.

And as such, it took me a few minutes before my brain finally kick-started and I promptly started panicking. I didn't recognise the room I was in; it was peculiarly familiar somehow…

Hold on.

This was _my _room. As in the pale violet coloured bedroom I grew up in, back in _England_. A wave of nostalgia passed over me as I heard the bells of Big Ben go off in the distance, and saw the many toys and books littered messily across the floor.

What was I doing here?

…was it all a just a bad dream then?

"_Open the bloody door already!"_

Groaning in exasperation, I rolled off her bed before making my way to the door and opening it.

What greeted my eyes was quite the shock.

A young girl, who had messy black hair that reached her shoulders and two murky black eyes, dressed fully in _kunoichi_ garb, was standing outside tapping her foot in impatience.

_Well, there goes my hope of that being a very elaborate hallucination then. Pity. _

"Finally. Took you long enough," the youth huffed in exasperation. She proceeded to waltz in and plop herself onto one of the two pale violet beanbags I had that acted as seats. I stood there, uncomprehending for a few seconds, before closing the doors slowly and sitting down on the other beanbag.

She was strangely familiar as well.

"Do I know you?"

She stared, then doubled over laughing.

"Y-you haven't realised yet? Kami, you're dense," she chortled, then breathed in to steady herself.

"I am _not_ dense!" I protested, but she had already moved on. "Rude brat," I muttered, but she just ignored me.

Humming in consideration, she said, "this should do it."

Looking me in the eyes, her two dark irises swirled into an instantly recognisable ruby red, with two spinning tomoe in each eye.

"You're…Mayue?"

"The one and only,"

I looked down at my form. I'm…Sophie again, long brown hair and all. Guess I didn't notice the red glasses perched on my nose, nor the two orbs on my chest the moment I woke up. Realising what that meant, I panicked and said, "I-I'm _so _sorry for taking over your body and-"

"Hey, it's alright. I don't mind."

I gaped, open mouthed at her flippant tone, "y-you don't _mind_? You do realise that I've taken over your life, essentially?"

She frowned in contemplation. "Well, I have forgiven you, I guess. Not that I mind much anymore, not since I looked at your memories that were about the future."

After deliberating for a few seconds, she said finally, "you know what, I think it is for the best. Me and you."

"What? What do you me-"

I started talking, but Mayue cut me off. "Hear me out please. We don't have much time in here."

"Where is _here_?"

"Your mindscape," she said dismissively, "anyway, I've been here, subconsciously not letting you accept who you are in my body."

I opened my mouth, but she put a finger on my lips to stop me. "The only real reason why I'm still here is because I still have attachments to my world, namely my dreams and my family," she explained.

She took in a deep breath. "I believe you can fulfil the dreams I wouldn't have fulfilled; protecting the family and Konoha."

The black-haired girl looked down while smiling, eyes slightly vacant, "it feels kind of disappointing, knowing that I wouldn't have lived past my graduation." Blinking, breaking out of her trance, she looked back up locked eyes with the older girl. "That's why I'm trusting you with my dreams. Protect Sasuke and Itachi, along with Konoha. Please."

"What about your parents, the rest of your family?"

She sighed and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "I've been thinking about that. I don't think you can do much about that without revealing too much. I feel conflicted, honestly; when I'm gone, I don't want to be alone."

"But, they're you _parents_! Can't we do something about-"

"Stop Sophie; it's fine." She reassured me with a bittersweet smile (it's not fine), then grinned at me with a tinge of hopelessness, "after all, you can't do anything if you're locked up in a T&I cell."

She stood up and stretched her arms, and then walked to the door. I hadn't noticed it before, but her body was already starting to become ghostly.

"Well Soph, it seems my time is up," Mayue sighed, then gave me the brightest smile she could muster up, "take care of them, can you promise me that?"

I silently straightened myself and walked right up to her. I hugged her as hard as I could.

"I promise you that I will take care of them in your stead," I whispered tearfully.

"Oh goody, you know you can't break your promises, you know?" Mayue said cheekily as she laughed shortly, then smiled gently at my sobbing form.

"Thank you for everything, Sophie. Go change the world. I'll still be right there, in your heart."

All that was left was a few shed tears and the soft echoes of her last words.

Sophie Beckett made a promise that day, that she'd protect all who she held dear.

No matter what.

* * *

A few days after, once I had fully recovered from my chakra depletion I decided to carry on with my ninjutsu practice; it was relatively late in the day, and it was far too late for me to go to attend the Academy.

So once again, I was out in one of the Uchiha training grounds again, mastering the Academy Three jutsu.

'Having a trump card would be nice,' I pondered as I moulded the chakra inside my body, 'might as well try to get one early on. Something like that'd help me get through the Chūnin exams for example.'

After casting my jutsu, yet another **Bunshin** appeared before me.

Was it strange that I could perform the Academy Three jutsus without hand seals now? I_ do_ recall them saying something about how you need less and less hand seals the more you use a jutsu, until eventually you don't need them at all.

I mean, at some point everybody has to master the Academy Three to perfection and execute them without hand seals. The enemy isn't going to wait to skewer you while you flip through the hand seals for **Kawarimi**.

Maybe I naturally just have good chakra control; for example Sakura _did_ have near-perfect control, she even accomplished the tree walking exercise successfully _on the first time_.

Sighing tiredly, I flopped down on the grass and stared at the passing clouds. I wonder if Shikamaru is doing the same right now, lazing off in the shade of some tree in the Nara clan's grounds. I wouldn't be surprised.

The **Kage Bunshin** I had created earlier grumbled at my idleness as it practised created more **Bunshin**s around me.

"Damn lackadaisical original…" it muttered, while tagging on some more unflattering things about me.

"Oh shush," I scolded…it? Me?

**Kage Bunshin**s are confusing. Hugely useful though, easily multiplying my experience in practicing something, so I decided to learn it as quickly as I could after my little tryst with the Library. Admittedly, it wasn't very wise of me to use so much chakra again, and nearly put me back in bed, but with my control it wasn't so hard to master.

One of the upsides of being an Uchiha is that my chakra reserves are pretty large for my age, I probably could pull off one or two _A-ranks_ before collapsing, comparable to an experienced genin. Not that I was going to test that; chakra exhaustion really sucks.

At any rate, I couldn't teach the technique to Naruto if I didn't know how to do it myself.

Suddenly, an idea crossed my mind. A stupid, dumb idea. Despite the idiocy of the thought, to me, it was a _challenge_. And I didn't turn down challenges if I couldn't help it. Like, for example, making my beloved cousin weep!

What? No, I'm just teasing him. (wink)

Well, there just isn't anyone else really worth teasing, to be honest. Itachi is out and about, doing ANBU-y things and isn't so closely related that we spend a lot of time together. We met briefly after Sasuke mentioned me a few times at their dinner table apparently.

I was rather flattered, I must say. It was, on the other hand, rather disconcerting having an (obviously) overprotective older brother studying me for the duration of that whole meal. I can actually imagine the thought process he was going through.

'Is she a threat?', 'what is she doing around my younger brother?', 'maybe she's trying to _seduce_ him?!'

…okay maybe the last one was slightly (very) exaggerated, but it was clear as day what he was thinking about me.

Alright, despite being a part of ANBU, the emotionless masked freaks who don't so much as _twitch_ when you crack the most funny bone-tickling jokes, when it came to his brother, you could tell from the look in his eyes he was going to take _drastic_ measures to keep him safe. It was that tiny bit of insanity all good ninjas have.

It was quite adorable, in my opinion.

Wait, does this make me a cradle robber if I find him a bit attractive?

He was only a year senior to me physically, but I'm mentally nearly _two decades_ older than him. There might've been some relationships in my old world where there'd been two-decade age differences, but…

My face was dusted with a light pink as I hastily stopped my thought process.

I sat up and thought about Itachi's indifferent poker face he wore during the few times I had met him.

Oh ho? I see that another challenge has made itself known. I cackled with glee thinking about all the ways I could crack that stony façade of his.

_Let's see how long he can resist my pranking and teasing. _

And speaking about challenges and secret trump-card techniques, a smirk on my face as I wondered,

'what would they say,' I thought as I stood up, 'if they saw _the_ signature jutsu of the Fourth Hokage?'

I mean, I do feel a bit bad that I am essentially learning a family technique without Naruto's permission, but I think he'll be fine with it. I think.

I stretched my body, arms behind my head and began thinking about where I could buy balloons and rubber balls without arousing too much suspicion…there _was_ a chance Jiraiya or Kakashi were wandering around in Konoha and might coincidentally spot me. I'm only a lowly Academy student after all.

An Academy student who is mentally older by twenty years.

And knows about some rather important, world changing events in the future.

…yup, just your average Academy student.

Yawning tiredly, I ambled towards home.

_I wonder what's for dinner. _

* * *

Well, it was bound to happen at some point…who was she kidding? They knew the exact moment she _approached_ Naruto. Or it could be her more-than-slightly-illegal activities she had done a few nights ago. She _really _hoped it wasn't to do with anything about her mysteriously knowing exactly how to learn the Yondaime's prized jutsu.

That'd mean that she would need to explain things that didn't add up _at all_, most likely in a T&I interrogation room.

Anyhow, now they want to know what's up with her.

Damn ANBU.

So yes, here she was, standing in front of the flipping Hokage, military dictator of the whole _village_. Calling her 'nervous' was the understatement of the century; scrap that, she was downright terrified.

Deciding to count sheep to calm herself, she tried to start counting them before realising the imaginary fence had been surprisingly set on fire and was burning down, poor sheep running amok around said fence.

You probably could guess that her mental state wasn't very stable at that moment. She winced and silently apologised to the now tenderly-fried lamb chops. Poor sheep.

Noticing her state of discomfort and how far into her anxiety she was, he lightly coughed into his hand to get her attention. When that failed, he asked, "Uchiha Mayue-san, do you know why you are here?"

She fidgeted under his knowing gaze, and looked down, "n-not exactly Hokage-sama."

If she didn't before, the young girl believed it now; all parents had this power that made children feel guilty.

He sighed and stood up, then strolled to the window behind his chair, which overlooked the whole of Konoha. He got out his pipe and lit it with a katon jutsu.

"Mayue-san, what do you think a Hokage does?"

Internally opting for a more childish view as an answer for the Hokage, she replied, "uhm, a Hokage fights bad people?"

He chuckles and turned back to look at her. "Yes, even though I haven't done so in quite some time, as you say, I did use to go around 'fighting the bad people'."

He paused, then said, "but a Hokage's job, first and foremost, is the wellbeing of the village. Do you recognise what I'm saying?"

She reluctantly nodded. "Is this because I snuck into the Library? A breach of information can potentially put the village in danger. For that I apologise deeply Hokage-sama."

He blinked twice, baffled at her outburst. before bursting out in raucous laughter. "Y-you broke into the _L-library_?" he wheezed, "how come I haven't heard of this?"

Mayue went red with embarrassment when she realised that she'd unintentionally let the cat out of the bag.

When his peals of mirth had subsided, he gathered himself despite the smile refusing to leave his face.

"Well, that was the most genuinely amusing thing I have heard in a long, long time," he admitted, a wistful expression on his face, before blinking again and hardening his expression.

"Hokage-sama? If that's not it, then wh-"

"Uchiha Mayue, don't try what you did again. Breaking curfew in a hidden village without permission will have serious repercussions on you and your family. Understand?"

"Yes Hokage-sama," the dark-haired girl said as she looked away sheepishly.

"The _real_ reason why you are here is because of our local fox." He looked carefully for any visible reaction to his words. And unfortunately for her, she was still a novice at the lying game, whereas he was a seasoned expert, and so she couldn't hide the truth from his prying eyes.

The slight widening of her eyes and the slight hitch in her breath gave her away.

"So, you figured it out," he sighed, "don't spread that information around. That's S-rank classified stuff, punishable by death."

His eyes narrowed. "You may be acting nice to Naruto for now, but my trust isn't as easy to earn. I already consider you a ninja if you managed to break into the Library, so if you move so much as one step out of line, you'll be locked in a cell faster than most _ANBU_ can **Shunshin**."

Indignation and panic swelled in her chest. In a haze of panic, for a second, Mayue completely forgot all about social etiquette and who she was talking to. Logic and reason seemed like faraway, muddled concepts in her state of alarm.

After all, she can't lose another one, not another person she considered _family_. She wouldn't be able to handle not seeing Naruto's heart-wrenchingly innocent and bright smiles anymore.

Accordingly, she snapped back at him angrily as she crossed her arms, "Naruto is the happiest child I have ever seen despite the horrors that I can't even imagine the civilians put him through. I would _die_ before thinking about harming him. Believe it!"

He looked long and hard at her eyes before nodding slowly. "…Then I trust you will take care of him properly. Do what I have failed to do because of this cursed position."

She exhaled in relief, all the tension draining away from her at once.

Even though the Hokage's hat was burdened with many duties (and paperwork), he lifted an eyebrow, as he remarked, "Naruto must be rubbing off on you. 'Believe it'?"

Mayue's face flushed a deep crimson when she realised that she'd talked back to the _Hokage_, in the most disrespectful tone possible, and to top it all off, she had copied Naruto's infamous verbal tick, 'Believe it!'.

She fixed the aged Sarutobi with an all-too-sweet smile. "You won't mention that slip of my tongue ever again, won't you? And if you do, I promise you that Naruto pranking you is the _least_ painful thing that will happen to you. _Capiche_?"

"Yes, I know," he gave a slightly strained smile as a shiver went down his spine, "now get some rest, we've been here talking for far too long for my age. Dismissed."

"Thank you Hokage-sama," she curtly responded, leaving the room quickly.

A moment later, after Mayue had left, a cat-masked ANBU appeared behind the Hokage, with one knee down and fist flat on the floor. "Was it wise to allow her to learn the **Kage Bunshin** technique, Hokage-sama?"

"I'm sure she'll need it at some point," he murmured while still looking over the village. He turned around and blanched. "My paperwork has multiplied. Again."

He fell to his knees and cried out to the heavens, "Curse you Minato!"

The hidden ANBU in the room just sweatdropped at his antics, all thinking 'how hasn't he figured out the trick yet?'.

They weren't going to tell him, of course. Besides, the 'Professor' had to live up to his name.

* * *

It wasn't until Mayue was well outside the building before she let herself sag in exhaustion. Heaving a sigh, she started walking in the direction of Training Ground Three.

She needed to pay her respects to someone.

After making her way to the tall, black stone shape that was the Memorial Stone, she spotted a masked hunched-over figure squatting in front of the monument. His mask's design resembled some sort of canine, while his hair was a silvery grey.

She knew exactly who he was, but didn't disturb him; it wouldn't be right for her to interrupt his mourning, as much as she wanted to slap some sense into him.

Kneeling, she quietly got out an fan that had the uchiwa engraved on it and gently placed it in the incense burner that was next the other daily offerings that were in front of the stone.

"You're awfully young to be here."

Even though his voice slightly startled her, she answered mildly, "doesn't one come here when they have lost a comrade or loved one?"

He doesn't answer for a minute.

"Yes. Though I didn't think that someone as young as you could lose a close friend or comrade yet. You haven't even become a ninja yet."

She chuckled mirthlessly as she lit the top of the fan with one of the other incense sticks and watched it slowly smoulder. "I didn't either. She didn't even get her name engraved here for what she did, because she was still a civilian. The wooden fan barely replaces it."

He glanced at the fan that was gradually burning away. "Family?"

Giving him a small smile, she replied, "Close as any person I consider family, Hound-san."

Once the all the wood had been turned to ash, she stretched her legs and stood up. "It was nice talking with you, Hound-san. The name's Mayue, if you didn't know. Uchiha Mayue."

As she was leaving the grounds, she paused, then called out to him. "I hope you can forgive yourself and move on. That's what they would have wanted."

This time he didn't answer.

'I wonder if I can find Naruto so that I can eat ramen with him,' she mused as she headed towards the Ichiraku ramen stand, 'it is quite lonely if you eat a comfort food by yourself.'

* * *

_A/N_: Some vocab to fill you in if you didn't know!

-sama – suffix used to denote people of higher status, or someone you hold in high regard.

_kunoichi_ – a kunoichi is a female ninja or practitioner of ninjutsu (ninpo).

_Kami_ – literally meaning 'god'. Just using it here because I thought it'd be more appropriate, I guess. I could've used 'Jashin' instead though. Hm.

_dōjutsu _– literally 'eye techniques', meaning techniques that need fancy hax eyes like the Byakugan, for example, to perform.

_hitai-ate_ – forehead protector, usually used to show village association.

_Yondaime _– literally meaning 'the Fourth', used in Naruto to denote the fourth generation of Kage. In this instance it's the Hokage.

* * *

Well sh*#. That was a lot of writing. There is a lot of spare scenes and ideas I haven't even implemented yet. SO much to do but not enough time… (exams, internal groan)

Anyhow, next chapter will probably expand on her fellow classmates' relationships, and more Naruto, Sasuke and co.

-Maki ~-=+ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

* * *

_**SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY**_


	6. Chapter 5 - A wolf in sheep's clothing

_**Chapter 5 – The wolf in sheep's clothing**_

Naruto frowned. His neechan hadn't been at school for the last few days and he was getting worried. When he had tried to find her by asking around the Uchiha compound, they just gave him disgusted looks and kicked him out.

It goes without saying that the Uchiha were quite high up his pranking to-do list.

He sat rather despondently on his swing. It where they both had decided to meet up every lunch time, she'd said something about 'you can't live off just ramen!'

Of course, Naruto didn't believe that since, to him, ramen was the food of the gods. But he trusted his neechan and let her feed him at lunch. Even if it was icky green vegetables.

Naruto sighed and began to leave when he heard a familiar voice call out to him. "Naruto!"

He looked up and a grin broke upon his face. "Neechan!" he ran up to her and hugged her tightly, "you made me worry!"

"Sorry about that 'Ruto," she laughed while she got out her bento, "I just caught a little cold. Now, shall we eat?"

"Yup!" he chirped; his previous gloomy mood completely forgotten.

They began exchanging stories about the different things they were being taught about in the Academy.

"Man, Iruka is harsh," he whined, "he made me do the leaf concentration exercise again and again until it stuck on my forehead!"

She raised an eyebrow. "But isn't that an important step in becoming a ninja?"

He grumbled, "yeah, but still…I don't like it! It's _really_ hard."

"Hmm…tell you what," she said after some pondering, "if you master that exercise, I'll teach you a cool new jutsu myself."

The moment 'cool new jutsu' came out of her mouth, his eyes gleamed with interest. Mayue swore she could almost see tiny _stars_ in his sapphire blue eyes.

He narrowed his eyes and scrunched them up in thought. "Wait, it isn't any of the academy jutsus?"

"Yep, something completely different," she confirmed, "that you'll find very, very cool."

"Alright neechan! I'll get this exercise mastered in no time! Believe it!" he stated confidently before running off to find the nearest leaf so that he could practice the exercise.

By the time she had yelled, "Naruto finish your food!" he had already disappeared into the many halls of the school, leaving only a dust cloud in his wake.

Mayue groaned in exasperation, since Naruto had escaped before she could give him his vegetables.

She leaned back against the Hashirama tree she was sitting beneath and was content with watching the passing clouds and listening to the twittering birds.

After a few minutes had passed, her lips curled upwards slightly as she recalled his expression of sheer determination and childish innocence.

"I bet he doesn't even understand that I'm feeding him properly," the girl mumbled tiredly. Keeping up with Naruto was like trying to do one of Maito Gai's absolutely brutal training regimes; it just was impossible.

She had decided to stay in the Academy for the full four years; _someone_ had to keep an eye on Naruto. It'd be easier to be in the same building for the majority of the week instead of being outside the village on a mission. It would also help avoiding the attention of a certain one-eyed bandaged elder. Really something she did not want _at all_.

Mumbling things about troublesome blonds, she tidied up the chopsticks and bento box, then headed back into her classroom to take another lesson.

Mayue absentmindedly meandered her way towards her classroom when she bumped into a boy who was clearly older than her. Stumbling back, she began to apologise when she realised the brat had done it _intentionally_.

Briefly mulling over her options, she decided to (reluctantly) apologise to the douche and move on.

Unfortunately, life has that knack of being cruel.

"Sorry about that, are you alright?" she said half-heartedly, then her eyes widened when he struck out with his fist, only missing because of her private training with her parents. (When they saw the state of her taijutsu, they became absolute _slave drivers_. And you wonder where she got her sadis-_cough_-teasing streak.)

He growled out in annoyance. "Damn _demon_ fraterniser. My mom says you should go burn in hell with him!"

These words certainly attracted some attention from most the passing bystanders, who stopped to watch what was going on. They kept their distance, though; they knew not to get too near a fight, instead cheering like immature children. Well, they were, but still.

In the meantime, she didn't know whether to be more surprised that the kid knew the word 'fraterniser' or that he had just called her brother in all but name a _demon_. Regardless, once those words came out of his mouth, his fate was sealed.

It was if a switch had been flipped as the pure anger coursed through her veins. In her rage she didn't realise she had subconsciously activated her Sharingan. Grabbing her bento, she threw it high above where she was standing.

Smiling a sickly-sweet smile, she asked, "I _really_ hope you didn't mean what you just said. It would be _such_ a pity if you needed to go to the hospital for what I'm about to do to you."

He sneered as he rapidly approached her. "I don't need to listen to a _demon-lover_."

Mayue's smile turned positively feral. "Good," she said simply, before intoning the word, "_**Kawarimi!**_"

All her practise with performing the jutsu seallessly seemed to be paying off as the bento box that had been launched in the air by herself suddenly disappeared and switched places with her. She oriented herself in midair swiftly before cocking back her fist and slamming it into the boy's unfortunate unsuspecting back.

He choked as his body crashed into the ground. She landed gracefully and caught the still falling bento box.

The fight had been over far before it had even begun.

Of course, the flare of chakra caught the attention of the teachers and they came to investigate the source. The sight they stumbled upon was a messy short-haired girl, humming contentedly while she sat on top a downed boy with a small _crater_ surrounding both.

For some strange reason the girl was also eating some vegetables from a bento box.

She grinned at the stunned chūnins.

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

It's as simple as that.

* * *

Understandably, I did need to receive some sort of punishment for putting a fellow student in hospital, so I was given a nice appointment with Hiruzen so that he could chew me out for injuring a comrade-to-be-maybe.

Of course, the 'chew' part of the sentence was thrown out the window when I told him about what tactless things the boy had said. He had told me not to do it again; evidently it would be pretty bad if people saw an Uchiha student start beating all of their fellow students up, just because they had got a bit angry.

I mean, _karma_, but I might have overdone it slightly.

…okay fine, quite a lot. Happy?

Anyway, the next day at the Academy, the whispers followed me everywhere. I **henge**'d into a generic looking student and listened in to one of the circulating rumours about my little brawl with that kid.

I had apparently been given the nickname 'The Wolf', because I was literally a lone wolf most of the time and that I was 'hiding in a sheep's clothing'. Could mean a few other things as well I guess, like how I hide my real skill level, which is probably way beyond an Academy student.

I paused. The debacle I had caused before probably caught the attention of Danzo. Shoot.

…oh well. Let him come if he wants.

A grim smile spread across my face.

I just need to be prepared to take him on.

* * *

Mayue stared in disbelief at the glowing blue sphere she held in her left hand.

"That's very much _not_ what I expected," she murmured, entranced by the beauty of the orb. She was in a secluded clearing at the edge of the Uchiha Training Grounds, so that no wandering or training ninja would discover her learning the **Rasengan**; even she knows that precautions need to be taken.

It had been only two weeks after she'd decided to learn the Yondaime's jutsu, and while she did know the method of training, and all the tips and tricks that came with it, Mayue had expected much more…problems. Obstacles.

She remembered that it was mentioned somewhere in the Naruto series that the **Rasengan **was 'the apex of shape manipulation'.

In spite of that, it seemed oddly easy to complete the first step, once she'd got the hang of moving her chakra outside of her body. Mayue found out that the further away your chakra is from your body, the harder it is to have fine control over it.

Anyway, Mayue had done exactly like Naruto had exclaimed in the anime, 'just make the chakra swirl in as many directions as possible, and the balloon will pop!'. Which it did.

In all honesty, for her, the second hardest part was trying to do such advanced chakra manipulation outside her body to begin with. She was pretty sure most ten-to-eleven-year olds weren't attempting to learn an A-Rank justu before they had even _graduated_ from the Academy.

The biggest problem she faced when learning the technique was the chakra drain during the second step, which was infusing power into the rotation. Makes her wonder how large Naruto's chakra reserves was in canon to throw these around like they were cheap confetti.

Which reminded her; the sphere was starting to destabilise, bumps were appearing on the previously unblemished surface. Refocusing her chakra quickly, she managed to somehow bring it back it under control.

Right; don't get distracted with dangerous jutsu. Control was key with the **Rasengan**, being distracted would mean a trip to the hospital, and a few not-so-friendly conversations with T&I. Not her ideal afternoon.

Mayue relaxed as she let the jutsu _(carefully)_ dissipate.

"You all done boss?" her clone called out from behind her.

"Yeah," she sighed, rubbing her neck to ease the stiffness, "dispel and I'll see if I can find Sasuke. Mikoto-kaasan asked me to take care of him, it's still early afternoon."

Stowing away the onslaught of memories she received from her **Kage Bunshin**, she amped up her legs with chakra and ran towards the familiar blue lake where she knew Sasuke would be.

It was his favourite spot after all.

* * *

***Title gained: Ōkami***

_Ōkami_ \- wolf

Took some time to get this chapter out, woo!

Unfortunately, I have an announcement to make: the intervals between new updates will become longer and longer due to GCSEs/O-Levels/High-School finals, whatever. Having exams does suck; when I write I feel like I am wasting time I could be studying. It's a terrible feeling ;(.

But, I will continue this story, because, as Jiraiya puts it;

_"Let me explain something to you, there is only one thing that matters if you are a shinobi, and it isn't the number of techniques you possess. All you do need, is the guts to never give up." - **Jiraiya **_

And I won't.

Have a happy Easter Holiday!

\- _Maki-sensei_ ❤

* * *

_**SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY**_


	7. Chapter 6 - The importance of bonds

**Chapter 6 – The importance of bonds**

_Thwack._

Panting, I flopped my back against the cool grass.

"I give, I give," I wheezed out.

"Hn," Itachi replied in the Uchihanese. I think that meant 'good work'; you can't be too sure with the Uchiha.

It had been about a year since I had completed the **Rasengan**, and since then I had mainly focused on improving my dismal taijutsu. Well, it was dismal partially because I hadn't adjusted to my new body size properly and my coordination was all over the place.

Anyway, you don't just _master_ an art in a few weeks, no. Within the year I had brought it up to a reasonable level (so I didn't look like a complete _fool_) and neglected the other ninja arts a bit in the meantime, though I did get taught the **Shunshin **by Shisui.

That, and the Uchiha's pride wouldn't allow such a terrible taijutsu user out of the Academy. I wasn't sure if I was annoyed or grateful. My feelings leant towards the former.

My appearance hadn't changed very much over the course of the previous year. My messy mop of dark hair had grown longer, to just below my shoulder height. Deciding that too long hair would prove disadvantageous in combat, I had put most of the hair that was hanging behind me in a bun. It was mostly held in place by a few hair-sticks my mom had given me.

She'd laughed when I told her about my hair problem and admitted she had the same problem around my age and had done something similar to what I was doing.

Anyhow, that's how I ended up training my taijutsu with Itachi of all people, since he was the oh-so-great _genius_ of the clan. Moreover, it really didn't help alleviating my growing guilty conscience about the bloodbath that would be happening in a year.

It hurt knowing that I couldn't do anything to changeit, what could I say?

'Oh sorry, I am a reincarnate from another world that may or may not have screwed up the whole timeline with my presence, my bad.'

Yeah, that'd go down well.

I sorely wished that I could tell someone, _anyone _that would listen. The painful iron ball in my stomach was aching. Badly.

"_Mayue."_

Is this what Itachi felt when he was ordered to defect? For nearly a decade, waiting to commit suicide by 'honourable' brother, all alone?

Lying to the whole world?

If that was true, then my respect for this person had just skyrocketed.

…was I brooding?

"Mayue."

Startled out of my stupor, I lashed out at the source of the sound. Itachi effortlessly caught my punch with a passive face.

"You have been standing there for the last five minutes while I stretched my muscles. Are you alright?" he asked almost robotically.

"Oh? Were you paying attention to me that much?" I teased, subtly shifting the conversation away from my trance.

"No, it just appeared to me that you were daydreaming for an extended period of time." He stated in a monotone voice.

Well, it didn't seem like Itachi was very interested or surprised at her answer. Let me change that.

"Hmm, so you _weren't _paying attention to my womanly charms. Perhaps you play for the other team?"

He stared at me as if I had grown another head.

"No answer hm? I hear no denial, I-ta-chi. Mikoto-kaasan will be _very _interested to hear-"

"If you must know, I am perfectly normal." He cut in. I could swear there was a twitch in his normally emotionless façade. All he needed was one more push.

I grinned manically. "Let's see what she says."

Itachi fixed me with a steely…glare? Can't exactly tell yet. "You wouldn't dare."

"Try me," my eyes swirling into the three-tomoe Sharingan as I put my hands in the tiger seal.

He zipped towards me at an astonishing speed, faster than I could react, with his own Sharingan spinning hypnotically. He was in front of me before I knew it, holding my arm so I couldn't **Shunshin** away.

The sudden change in momentum caused me to stumble back. Just as I was starting to fall, an arm snaked behind my back to steady me.

Looking up I saw Itachi, face far too close for comfort. I could feel Itachi's warmth radiate from just his arm.

"And I thought you weren't a romantic, Itachi," I remarked, raising an eyebrow.

His lips curled upwards ever so slightly.

"Well, it seems you were wrong."

I leant closer, with slightly parted lips and half lidded eyes. I gazed at Itachi. "This time I don't think I mind…"

His eyes widened as my flushed face neared, almost imperceptibly. I licked my lips and gave him the foxiest smirk I could muster up.

"…Not."

An audible pop was heard in the clearing, as Itachi found himself supporting a wooden log instead of the elusive Mayue. He heard the call of _"__**Shunshin!**__"_ and the rustling of leaves.

Cursing himself for underestimating her skills, he performed his own **Shunshin** to get to the house quickly.

Itachi hadn't though that she'd mastered the Kawarimi to such a degree yet. It seemed 'geniuses' were littered everywhere now. Taking a paper out of the Nara's book, it was 'troublesome' to say the least.

He reappeared in a swirl of leaves, rapidly discarding his shoes at the entrance, and headed to the kitchen. After whipping his head left and right, Itachi sighed in relief; there seemed to be no sign of Mayue, let alone her talking with his mother.

He turned around and was going to properly put his shoes away, but instead froze when his mother said, "oh," Mikoto noted while she stir-fried some vegetables in her pan, "It's the second one to return from practice."

"Okaasan, what do you mean…_second_?"

She smiled cheerfully, "Mayue returned a tiny bit earlier, you know. Asked where Sasuke was, no idea why though."

The moment 'Sasuke' came out of her mouth, Itachi was not much more than the whistle of displaced air. Hurtling up the stairs and down the corridor, he wrenched open the sliding door to hear the words,

"So Sasuke, when a man and woman love each other very, very much, they-"

I didn't get to finish my sentence as I was tackled by Itachi.

Sasuke looked bemused.

"What do you mean Yue-neesan?"

"Mayue, stop corrupting my brother!" he choked out desperately, trying to get me to shut up. I, of course, the stubborn person I am, didn't want to and started tussling with him instead.

"I will never give up!" I yelled out faux-valiantly as I tried to get out of his grip. My actions seemed to have incentivised him to hold down _both_ my arms while my back was on the floor.

My face flushed considerably when I realised what position we were in.

It was this scene Mikoto viewed as she was investigating all the sounds from upstairs.

She stared.

We stared back.

Nobody moved for a good few seconds. The silence was broken by Sasuke, who didn't really understand what was going on, and so didn't care and yawned. He tilted his head when he remembered something Mayue had mentioned a minute earlier. "Mom, what does happen when a man and woman love each other very, very much?"

The stifled groan of despair Itachi gave made my day.

* * *

Ever since _that_ day, Mayue had gained somewhat of a reputation in the Academy; the incident had spread through the school like wildfire. Funnily enough, some of her juniors actually _idolised_ her. Colour her surprised.

It was apparently because she had 'stood up to the boys' and it looked like she was a 'genius' or something. Either way, she was actually happy with the development; it would be noticed if she mysteriously disappeared suddenly. (Ahem. _Danzo._)

She was a tad bit lonely though, and if she remembered correctly, she had a Nara in her class. Maybe befriending her would be a good idea, though unfortunately hanging around Naruto had detached herself from her class even more. Damn civilians.

It wouldn't be worst person to go for a friendship either: the Nara and the Uchiha weren't exactly at each other's throats, unlike the Hyūga. Clan relationships wouldn't mess up anything to do with my friends.

As Mayue walked into the familiar khaki-coloured room, filled with chatting students and rows of long wooden desks (a few did look a bit uneasy at her appearance), she decided that she would remove the stigma that surrounded Naruto whenever she tried to make any sort of friendship between her classmates and future teammates.

It shouldn't have been surprising when she promptly walked up to the female Nara and bluntly stated, "what do you think of Uzumaki Naruto?"

It went unsaid that this was certainly _not_ what the Nara had expected from the bun-haired Uchiha.

The Nara stared.

"He's sometimes called a demon by the villagers, and is seven years old," she looked at me warily, "why do you want to know?"

"Well…" she drawled as she sat herself next to her, drawing the attention of a few surprised glances; nobody thought the troublemaker 'genius' would sit next to the lazy Nara.

"You know how the Kyuubi attacked 7 years ago?"

"…yes?" she hesitantly replied, not knowing where this was going.

"And Naruto was born seven years ago?"

For a few seconds, she tilted her head and got in her Nara Thinking Pose™, then her eyes widened as she joined the dots. "Hold on, so you're saying-"

"I said nothing, what do you mean?" Mayue smiled, fluttering her eyelashes.

"Troublesome," she breathed out, with a hint of something that may have been respect. "You are one sly person, you know. Why tell me all this though?"

"I just wanted to remove any preconception when trying to start a relationship. My name is Uchiha Mayue, you?"

She blinked.

The silence reigned for a few seconds before she started chortling. "Oh, this is _gold_. You do know that the Nara clan don't usually discriminate before taking a good look themselves? The name's Shikana. Nara Shikana."

Sighing in relief, Mayue yawned visibly.

"So," Shikana asked while putting her head on her arms, "why try to be friends now?"

"Because it's lonely."

"No kidding. With the nickname 'Wolf' I can imagine," she snorted.

"Mhm, so they are saying that about me now, huh..." I hummed noncommittally.

"So, I've heard from a friend of a friend that you have mastered the **Kawarimi**?" she said slowly, "any chance you can help a…friend in need?"

"Alright, though we don't really need to _master _it at the moment. Why?" Mayue responded, glancing at the ticking clock. It was only a sparse few minutes until lessons started.

Shikana grimaced. "I need _some way _to escape my troublesome parents. It is rather useful for getting out of situations as well."

The dark-haired Uchiha tilted her head, "I generally thought all Nara were rather chill and don't chase their children around?"

Lifting an eyebrow, she replied, "and I generally though Uchiha don't go around pranking people?"

"Touché. Let's meet up at the end of school so I can walk Sasuke home," she chuckled, then grumbled out, "damn Itachi dumping him on me because of ANBU."

The Nara just lifted an eyebrow and held her forefinger to her lips. _Classified_.

Mayue winced.

"Quiet, class is starting!" Iruka hollered, stumbling with the sheer amount of learning material in his arms.

Shikana looked at Mayue reproachfully. "_This_ is why I'd like to learn **Kawarimi**. Easy escape from death by boredom."

The Uchiha just gave her a resigned grunt.

"Hn."

It's not like she could just play hooky; Iruka-sensei didn't find Naruto by being bad at tracking people. She'd be back in the classroom within _minutes_. Still beats her how an academy teacher chūnin can do what ANBU and other jōnin can't.

The Nara rolled her eyes as she got ready to fall asleep in the first set of lectures.

She already knew all of this after all; any Nara worth their salt would at this age.

* * *

"Neechan!" The breath got knocked out my lungs as a yellow blur of cuteness slammed into my stomach.

"How was class? What's for lunch? Who's your friend?"

I groaned. Did Naruto's endless energy never end?

"Class was fine Naruto, we learned some stuff about chakra," she poked his forehead reprovingly, "that you should be learning in class too."

He pouted cutely at my jab.

"It's not my fault it's so boringggg…" he moaned, plopping himself down on the ground under the tree.

"And it's necessary for you to learn so you become a ninja. Oh, this here is Kana-chan, my new friend."

Shikana waved lazily, the other hand snugly tucked in her pocket, not at all bothered that I had just given her a nickname. Must be a Nara thing.

"Nara Shikana, nice to meet you Naruto."

There was no answer for a few seconds as Naruto sized her up. Shikana just stared at him back, one eyebrow lifted.

This seemed to send the wrong message. "You're not going to steal my neechan away!" he yelled as he hugged me tighter.

The following silence was absolutely deafening.

"…It would seem like Kana-chan has a rival competing for my love," I snickered.

The Nara had to stifle her giggle of amusement, but the dam didn't seem to hold as she burst into very unNara-like laughter moments later.

"What?" scowled Naruto, confused about what was going on but could tell he was somehow on the butt end of a joke.

"Nothing 'Ruto, don't ever change," I sighed in fond exasperation, stroking his bright yellow locks of hair.

Naruto didn't think much of it and just snuggled up to his neechan.

* * *

Kaasan – regular way of addressing a mother/motherly figure.

Okaasan – more formal way of addressing a mother/motherly figure.

_Japanese Trivia: the 'O' addition to the start of familial pronouns like the above makes it more formal. The addition can be applied to a multitude of other things like 'sembe' and 'osembe' (both means cracker/biscuit, but the latter is more formal.)_

* * *

_A/N_: Well, short chapter I guess. Not much inspiration for now, got some ideas but not really feeling up to it atm. Same as last A/N; less and less updates leading up to exam finals :P.

-Maki ~-=+ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

* * *

_**SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY**_


	8. Chapter 7 - Halcyon days

_**Chapter 7 – Halcyon days**_

It was another sunny Wednesday at the Academy, around midway through the lunch break. You'd find a few ninjas milling around the restaurants and the street food stalls of Konoha. Only a few mind you, if you could see more as a civilian, something had gone very wrong as this was a _ninja _village. Being unseen was part of the job.

As per usual for a normal day, we were under the same tree I had met Naruto. Shikana was slightly further away, the majority of her body under the sun but her head was protected by the shade of the tree. She apparently was cloud gazing and didn't like the light blasting her face while she tries to see the fluffy splashes of white drifting across the sea of blue.

It was kind of poetic.

I hummed noncommittally at the energetic blonde's last comment. I swear that he _never_ runs out of energy.

"Ruto, you need to get more friends." I said after pondering for a few minutes. I could see the raised eyebrow from my lazy friend out of the corner of my eye.

"What, why?" was his confused response.

"Because I don't want to be the only one with my ear talked off," (he snorted at my admittedly petty reason) I stated matter-of-factly, "and it's never good to be alone."

Naruto's face scrunched up in thought, trying to figure out the meaning of my words. "But I have you neechan, and Kana-chan as well."

He looked down at the small box that contained some rice and (yucky) vegetables. "Anyway, nobody likes me and wants to be my friend. They just call me names and leave me by myself."

I stared at him long and hard. That was a lie and we both knew it; they didn't _just_ call him names, oh no, it was much worse. Putting it at the back of my mind to mull over at a later date, I continued.

"So, if you meet a wall, does that give you an excuse to back out? The right to give up?" I took in a breath. "Uzumaki Naruto, if you want something that bad, go get it with your own two hands! Isn't that your nindō?"

He just cocked his head. "What's a 'nindō'?"

…crap.

Time seemed to slow down as I realised my mistake. I mentally slapped myself.

Naruto didn't start talking about not going back on his word until the _Chūnin exam arc_ came around, and even then, he had learned about how difficult his path would be only when the Wave Mission came around. I could _feel_ the questioning glance my friend sent me.

"Ehm…it's a person rule of a ninja lives by 'Ruto. It's…a part of their beliefs, it's what makes them, well, them. Like how you don't want to give up trying to be Hokage."

_Like how I carry the dreams and lives of others._

He looked at me with a thoughtful face, then broke into a wide grin. "Yeah. I'll never give up trying to become Hokage! That's my nindō!"

I subtly glanced at my friend with my Sharingan. She seemed to have dismissed my strange behaviour and gone back to watching the clouds. Sighing, I swept my gaze across the clearing. My eyes landed on a small chakra presence that was behind a tree not too far away from the three of us.

I narrowed my eyes. My fingers twitched. Turns out Shikana was paying attention to my body language as she tensed up as well. Damn smart Naras.

Anyway, my mind flicked through the possibilities of an attacker of some sort, before I realised there was one very likely candidate for the mystery person.

Well, only one person comes to mind when you talk about stalking Naruto Uzumaki.

"Come on out," I called out, "we know you're there."

I discreetly gave Kana a placating gesture and she relaxed.

Distantly I could hear a quiet 'eep'.

Naruto just looked at us, very much confused. "Huh? What's going on?"

A short, dark blue-haired girl clad in a cream-coloured jacket shuffled her way out from behind the tree.

"I-I'm sorry f-for spying on y-you," she stuttered anxiously.

The fox jinchūriki, clueless as always, just greeted her brightly. "Hey Hinata-chan! What were you doing?"

The Hyūga Heiress just blushed deep red and poked her fingers together. Naruto scratched his head, then oh-ed in realisation. "Oh! You want to be friends with us?"

_Real smooth, Naruto._

"Y-yes Naruto-kun." If it was even possible, which it now was, her face turned into a deeper shade of crimson. She looked positively _ecstatic_.

Hinata bit her lip and turned towards the two elder girls. "Um…w-what i-is…" she mumbled while looking determinedly downwards.

"Speak up, Hinata," I encouraged.

She took a deep breath in and cried out, "whatisyourelationshipwithNarutokun?"

I blinked, uncomprehending.

I smirked with one eyebrow up at her interpretation of my relationship with Naruto. "Oh-ho? A bit jealous are we?"

She looked down again and poked her finger together, cheeks flaring darkly.

I leant towards the nervous girl; my vermillion red eyes predatory as I cupped her soft cheek. "Oh Hina-_chan_," I purred softly. The poor Hyūga was rigid with shock.

"Don't worry, I am just his neechan. However," I breathed, "you want something…_more_ than that, don't you?"

Her response was to fall backwards in a dead faint, landing on the picnic blanket the three of us had put out to eat on.

The female Nara just sighed, while Naruto looked at me and Hinata with confusion.

"Yue, that was a bit much for the innocent girl, don't you think?"

I pouted. "But…she is so cute and easy to tease~, oh, and don't tell me she didn't enjoy that too."

The unconscious girl _did_ have a small smile on her lips.

Shikana just deadpanned. Mayue had looked too much like the resident crazy snake-woman, the Nara decided. She dearly hoped the two never met, it would mean the end of her (relatively, thanks to the troublemakers beside her) tranquil life.

In the background, Naruto, not knowing really what was going on with his classmate and now friend Hinata, decided to take the initiative and hide the icky green vegetables from his box. Far too preoccupied with the unconscious heiress, the other two didn't notice a thing.

Or so he thought.

"'Ruto, I can see you," she called out while trying to rouse the blue-haired girl, "and if you don't eat those, I will make sure you won't have any ramen for a month. _Personally._" Shikana suppressed a snicker.

He blanched. The vegetables that were eloping suddenly found themselves back in his lunchbox.

Naruto decided then and there that girls were very scary when they wanted to be.

* * *

"Why does the _dobe_ have to come?" Sasuke moaned out, his mood now plummeting since Mayue had told him that they were going to train together.

"I didn't want you to come either, _teme_!" Naruto snarked back.

"Children, stop bickering," Mayue ordered as they arrived at Training Ground 11.

"But Yue-neesan!/But neechan!" they both whined. Not that Sasuke'd admit it; Uchiha don't _whine_.

When they heard what the other had said, the two younger academy students started to glare at each other. "Oi, dobe. She's _my_ neesan."

Naruto puffed up in anger. "No, she is _my _neechan!"

The eldest Uchiha frowned at this. She didn't want them to fight over her, so she quickly thought up a plan.

"Alright you two, here is a challenge," I began, seeing their eyes light up at the prospect of a challenge, "but, if you fail this challenge, you cannot call nor consider me your older sister. Understood?"

The change of expression was so quick it was almost comical.

Naruto started to splutter and protest, but Mayue held up a finger. "The challenge is, while in a spar, to touch me at least _once_. You have one hour. Either of you will do."

As she was setting up the alarm clock that would ring in exactly an hour, they both relaxed slightly. After all, how hard could it be to touch her, an academy student like them?

* * *

For the umpteenth time in the span of the forty minutes, Sasuke bit the dust. He was also pretty sure that his neesan had quite the sadistic streak. Every time he had got even _close_ to her, somehow a trap got under him, above him, or right in front of him.

He could now see the gap in their skill levels all too clearly.

He would never admit it, but he was rather jealous of Naruto's uncanny ability to detect said traps. Not that it would last for very long; the blonde-haired boy would be bombarded with dozens of balloons filled with paint. And they _hurt_.

The younger Uchiha was only spared because he was hanging by the foot under a tree at that moment.

"Hey! _Teme_!" a familiar voice hissed.

Sasuke jolted and turned his head to see the other boy hiding behind the tree he was hanging under.

"I'm here to get you out, so stop struggling," he muttered as he quietly scaled the tree and tried to undo some of the knots on the rope.

The dark-haired boy stopped giving the stink eye to Naruto and shivered once he had heard his older sister figure's lilting voice. "Oh 'Rutoo…won't you come out and play~?"

There was a pause, then a dark chuckle. "Hm? It seems that there are _two_ little cubs who want to play…"

"Got it!" Naruto exclaimed as the rope unravelled and Sasuke landed heavily on his back after failing to completely right himself. Despite his heavy fall, he quickly leapt up and dashed away.

"The Sharingan is such a cheat!" the blonde muttered, and Sasuke just pretended to have not heard him.

Naruto leapt off the tree and followed the Uchiha boy quickly. Sasuke just glanced at him and gave him a 'Hn' of thanks, not that he understood it. One must spend a lot of time with an Uchiha to learn the ins and outs of Uchihanese. Naruto's response was a twitch of his eye.

"We need a plan," he whispered to Naruto as they stopped to hide behind yet another one of the many Hashirama trees. They both could hear the distinct pitter-patter of their elder sister's footsteps, only about twenty meters away at best.

"Okay," Naruto began, "so this is what we gonna have to do to keep our neechan."

"Mine," he snapped back.

"Neither of ours at this rate," he exclaimed, and Sasuke just Hn-ed while looking away. A moment later, he looked back at Naruto reluctantly and finally gave in.

"Alright," he relented, "what's your plan?"

* * *

I smiled. It appeared that the two of them were working together, which was the point of the challenge. They didn't have a chance against a much more experienced opponent like her (after her _bruta_-nice training. _Cough._)

You see, I had no real intention of going through with the threat I had made earlier, just I would punish them in unusual ways to train them. Like banning ramen for Naruto. (Naruto didn't know why, but an ominous shiver went down his spine.) Eating only ramen was incredibly unhealthy after all.

I readied another set of paintballs, when suddenly, Sasuke burst through the nearby bushes and dashed towards me. I frowned slightly. Honestly, I had thought that they maybe had made up and started cooperating, but it seems I had been wrong.

You could _see_ the surprise etched on my face when my fun weapon of choice phased through Sasuke's body.

_What? Is he like Obito and his Sharingan? But he hasn't activated his Mangekyo, and that isn't his Mangekyo's ability anyway? _

I nearly slapped myself when I realised that I had looked far too deeply into the whole thing and that this ghostly illusion was a **Bunshin**. Honestly, getting tricked by one of the few jutsus I knew. Embarrassing.

Channelling chakra to my eyes, the world seemed to gain an extra layer of clarity and colour. I'd say that it was like someone had switched my vision from 360p to 4k resolution, while cranking up the saturation of the colours quite a bit.

Putting it simply, it was like I had been short-sighted, and I just put on my slightly-too-strong glasses and could now see _very _clearly_._

Dashing through the undergrowth, I saw two chakra presences in my vicinity and headed towards the nearest one. By sheer luck or pure instinct, from the corner of my eye I spotted a metal glint right in front of me while I ran.

I would've been caught in the trap at my speeds, but thanks to the Sharingan, my reactions were fast enough for me to perform a quick **Shunshin** through the trap, triggering it, but too fast to be trapped by it.

I skidded to a halt and briefly inspected what had nearly caught me, before gaping slightly. This was formerly _my_ traps, but someone had repurposed them to be catching _me_. I could very well guess who this someone was.

I cast my weary eyes across the immediate area, spying a few traps here and there. I realised that the **Bunshin** had been just a distraction and a way to buy time. I'll give them credit, that was a smart tactic.

_Why would he put traps that wouldn't be guaranteed to catch me?_ _What if_…

My thoughts were interrupted as two dark-haired boys dashed out from behind a nearby tree. In my recent panic I had not noticed that someone had been so close to me and I quietly cursed as I jumped back. Before the challenge/test had started, I had resolved not to use any of my jutsus on them.

That hadn't stopped me from making two **Kage Bunshin**s and ordering them to set up some traps, amidst some reluctant grumbling. Remember? No using jutsu _on them_. Nothing about anything else.

Anyhow, that wasn't really helping my current predicament as the traps I had set up had turned against me and now I was at a severe disadvantage; even with the Sharingan enhancing my reactions (still hax I say), my body couldn't handle the speed I was attempting to go at for very long durations.

And as such, I was tiring out rather quickly. The combination of me needing to dodge much more than the boys, purely because of the massive number of traps they had gleaned from me.

I watched the two Sasukes very closely. There were no differences as far as I could tell between the two, down to the chakra coils. It would make sense if that clone was a **Kage Bunshin**, since normal **Bunshin** didn't have a chakra system. And if so, when and how did Sasuke learn how to perform **Kage Bunshin**?

The Sasuke on the left ran towards me, and I gave it my full attention. It didn't matter if it was a shadow clone; one hit and it would disperse. I cocked back my arm to throw a particularly mean curveball, when I belatedly realised, I had taken my attention off the other Sasuke and I saw it just…standing there.

What's more, its chakra system had mysteriously disappeared.

I refocused my eyes on the approaching Sasuke and decided that this one was the bigger threat. I saw him throw a black…ball? I just ducked beneath it and started to dart backwards to avoid the oncoming threat when I heard a 'puff' of smoke from behind me.

Eyes widening, I whipped my head around and saw that the black ball was just Naruto transformed via super-**Henge**.

I halted my movements to avoid the blonde behind me but had forgotten that there was another person in front of me as well, and so consequently, just seconds before the alarm clock would ring, Naruto and Sasuke successfully completed the challenge and grabbed both of my arms.

The tears that were shed in relief would not be admitted by either of them (they were far too proud for that), but I would burn it into my memory using the Sharingan.

There was only so much time left before these halcyon days ended after all.

* * *

After tears had been shed, praise given, and reconciliations made, the odd trio headed back to the small clearing where they had left the small white and red alarm clock upon a wooden stump.

Mayue would say that her plan to get Naruto and Sasuke working together appeared to have worked. It also didn't go unnoticed by her that a budding rivalry was developing between them.

She clapped hands together to get the attention of the resting boys.

"So little brothers, what do you think the point of that exercise was?" she asked.

Naruto put his hand on his chin in a thinking pose, while Sasuke just cocked his head to the side.

"Wasn't it just to stop us from arguing with each other?" he replied, thinking harder about the purpose of the challenge.

"That is true, but if you want to become a better ninja," Mayue grinned as she told them one of Kakashi's quotes, "you must see what is underneath the underneath. There is nearly always something going on in the background."

She stretched my body to ease it after the strain she'd put it under beforehand. "Additionally, it was showing you that you both can improve if you try. It also showed the effectiveness of teamwork."

They nodded in understanding. Well, Naruto just scratched his head, then shrugged and nodded with Sasuke.

The girl beamed, proud. "Stand alone and you will crack, but stand united and you will be unbreakable. Remember that."

Mayue stood up and brushed off her black t-shirt, under a thin metal mesh. "Let's go get something to eat, on me. Ramen?"

Naruto's eyes began to sparkle again. "You serious neechan?!" he exclaimed in delight.

Sasuke just gave a humph and an indifferent grunt. "Hn."

"Come on," she coaxed Sasuke, "they've got pretty good soup and noodles." I quickly skimmed through my memories of the menu at Ichiraku's. The Sharingan's eidetic memory was good for _something_.

Like remembering ramen menus.

Anyway, she recalled there being a tomato-based noodle dish that looked suspiciously similar to pasta. Ayame and Teuchi had received a mysterious recipe from an anonymous source recently. Wonder who that could be.

The eldest Uchiha smiled slyly. "Sasuke, there is a sort of…_tomato_ ramen at Naruto's favourite stand. If you don't want to go, I understan-"

"I'll go."

"Ha! I knew it; nobody can resist the food of the gods!" the ramen addict crowed with glee.

"Naruto," Mayue called out as they started leaving the training ground, "Sasuke is going to reach Ichiraku's first if you don't get moving!"

It was true; the other boy had already run off to get his tomato ramen (cough-pasta-cough).

"What! No fair, wait for me!" the golden-haired boy said as he dashed in pursuit of the fleeing Uchiha.

She just shook her head and laughed, following the competitive duo to the Ichiraku ramen stand.

Just another day in Konoha.

* * *

In the shade of one of the many green trees that encompassed Training Ground Three was an ANBU agent, decked out in grey gear and a mask that had a weasel's face painted on. It would go unseen, but the smile behind it was very much there.

It seemed that the enigmatic girl was taking care of his brother very well, he decided as he **Shunshin**-ed out of the tree. He'd have to pay attention to this one; mysteries were something he liked to solve, and he had all the intention in the world to figure out her.

* * *

Teme – 'you', but in a derogatory/insulting way, though can be affectionate between friends depending on the kind of relationship.

Dobe – dumbass/idiot, along those lines.

_A/N_: ;-; exams helpmepless ;-;. That aside, I am actually rather receptive to any ideas the readers may have, so you can review and tell me anything that might suit and add to the story. See ya next time!

_\- Maki-sensei_ (=3=)/

* * *

_**YOU'RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT**_


	9. Chapter 8 - When the cicadas chirp

_**Chapter 8 – When the crickets chirp**_

It was another cloudless day in Konoha. Mayue never really like these kinds of days; it seemed like someone had lazily painted the sky. It was terribly boring just looking at the all-encompassing pale blue. She wouldn't admit it to Kana, but at times like these she appreciated hobbies like cloud watching.

The bun-haired girl sighed tiredly, lifting herself off her house's wooden back porch after deciding to visit one of the many Uchiha training grounds that were scattered around the outskirts of the village. She couldn't clear her thoughts there at all, and the cicadas chirp loudest there for some reason.

How bothersome.

…dammit, she was picking up some of Kana's bad habits.

Moments later, she was leaping through the treetops, practising her chakra control and spatial coordination, while additionally expanding her admittedly already large-for-her-age chakra reserves. You never have too much chakra.

…well, unless you're like Naruto. Then you _definitely_ have too much chakra. She could actually mistake Naruto's blinding amount of chakra with the sun if she had her Sharingan on.

In any case, the truth was that she loved the thrill of jumping through the green trees and the cool breeze whistling past her. In her old world, she never could really do anything this exhilarating. She was sure that if she was born in Kiri, it would be the same but with swimming instead*.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the Uchiha girl's keen ears heard a quiet high-pitched whine from somewhere on the grassy floor below. Turning her head, she spotted through now glowing red eyes a small presence of chakra, not much more than an animal would have.

Deciding to investigate the source of the sounds, she cautiously approached the assumed animal. This was totally not because of an incident she wouldn't divulge voluntarily for as long as she lived, which involved a particularly vicious cat that might or might not have been named Tora.

You could imagine her surprise when she all but stumbled upon the most beautiful yet bloodstained…dog? Its silvery-white fur shone brightly despite the crimson red that coated it, the trail of dark splatters leading deep into the shady trees. The small miserable thing set its golden amber eyes on the frozen girl, whimpering in pain as it lay on its side. It couldn't have been older than a few months, yet it had the most deadened eyes she had ever seen.

Way to pull her heartstrings.

But she wasn't paying attention to that. Her eyes were locked on to the rosy _red_ that blossomed beneath it. At that moment, she didn't see the cub, nor the forest.

She saw herself, cut and bleeding, left to die on the ground.

And she would be damned if she let something like that happen again. Not when something could be done.

All this happened in just a few seconds, then she was off in the fastest **Shunshin **she had ever performed, chakra be damned. She landed on one of the rooftops in the market district and raced towards the Inuzuka compound. The cub let out a quiet whine, nestling into her chest for some sort of reassurance.

She ignored it. At the moment, she needed to think rationally; it wouldn't do if she panicked and someone died from that.

If there were any people who knew how to take care of animals in Konoha, it was the Inuzuka.

Later, when she had calmed down from her miniature(?) crisis, she would think that she was far too composed and logical, more than usual anyway. It had felt to Mayue like she was going through the movements, but _she_ wasn't there. It was as if it was a surreal dream.

Landing lightly on her feet, the speeding girl screeched to a halt and began knocking on the door with a vengeance. Poor door didn't deserve it, but she really couldn't care less at that moment.

"Yes, who is it?" answered an irate girl after several seconds had passed. Several _crucial _seconds.

There were no words needed; she looked at the quietly whining animal in the black-haired girl's arms and frowned. "Follow me, quickly," the Inuzuka girl ordered professionally, striding hastily back through the gates and into one of the nearby buildings in the compound.

After throwing open the door and clearing out one of the beds, she gestured for the dazed girl to place the animal on the cot. Mayue snapped out of her stupor, quickly doing so.

"Leave and wait out please. I don't want to get distracted while trying to heal her," she stated as she efficiently prepared all the necessary equipment.

Nodding slightly, the other girl vacated the premises and sat down in a chair that was outside the ICU-esque room.

Once the emotionally drained Uchiha had settled, she suddenly released all the tension that had built up in her body and slumped on the chair. It was alright for her to rest, right?

Hadn't she done enough?

Those were the words she muttered as she drifted off into a dreamless slumber, one last image of her former family surfacing, before sinking back into the depths of her slipping consciousness.

* * *

"…_w"_

"_Com…on…"_

"_W…up…"_

"_He..lo…wak…up!"_

"Wake up!"

Mayue jolted awake, hair stick in hand, ready to poke to death the one who had woken her up. The Inuzuka girl, who was about her age, she noted blearily, was standing a far bit away from her, probably to avoid anything that might happen if you were to try to wake an unconscious ninja.

Like getting poked to death.

The pony-haired girl serenely raised her eyebrow, arms crossed. "So? What was that all about?"

"Hana?" Mayue muttered, trying to shake away the drowsiness that came with waking up, not exactly processing anything that was happening.

Why was she so tired?

The half-awake Uchiha didn't notice Hana's surprised expression, nor her raised eyebrow.

Her answer came as the cloudiness that surrounded her thoughts finally dissipated. She remembered now, there was that dog that was injured. Was it alright? She hoped so.

"Is it okay?" she spoke as she stood up from her chair. Big mistake.

The world seemed to blur and tilt precariously, whole parts of her vision going blank.

Hana's eye twitched, as she answered with a slightly strained smile. "She's fine. On the other hand, you," she admonished sternly with all the power of a fussing mother, "are suffering from some nice _chakra_ _exhaustion_. No exercise for the next few days, doctor's orders."

The Inuzuka vet-in-training smiled smugly, hands on hips; it wasn't too often when she could act like a real doctor or nurse. She was still practicing and learning after all.

Pity Mayue didn't hear the rest, as the tired girl tuned out after the words 'chakra exhaustion'. A trained ninja could shake off the haze from waking up in less than a second, but from an Academy student with chakra exhaustion; not so much.

The standing girl blinked when she realised that the other girl was rather out of it and flicked her forehead reproachfully. "Get some rest, you hear me?"

Nodding wearily, Mayue stood up and promptly stumbled. As her mind finally caught up with the present, an old lesson taught in the academy resurfaced in her mind, one of the first, as she lost her balance and toppled forward; _chakra exhaustion is the one thing that you don't want at any time. The symptoms of lethargy, weariness and possible inability to move can be debilitating if you need to carry out a mission. Now, who can tell me… _

Shortly before she hit the ground and passed out, Mayue felt a comforting arm catch her body.

"Sheesh, what a high maintenance girl. Sleep f..r now ok..y..?…"

And she did.

* * *

A day in the life of Inuzuka Hana was one of normalcy and order. She would take care of the ninken and other animals, feed them their dog food and other food respectively, and go to school shortly after. Nothing strange with that.

There would be a scuffle or two with the dogs, something about one of them eating the other's dinner. Happens practically every evening.

Nothing strange with that.

When a panicking girl clutching a blood-spattered animal comes to wrathfully knock on your door (she quietly prayed for the ill-fated door), that's when you know that the day is going to become much more than you bargained for. Hana didn't exactly mind that, since her family literally were known for their ninken, and that she was also aspiring to become a veterinarian, the problem was that...

...she was woefully unprepared to see that much blood. Embarrassing right? She had _barely_ kept herself in check when she saw that poor canine. Got to keep up appearances, right? You can't have your client see your panic, or else they will panic as well.

She silently thanked the elderly Inuzuka who was a helper from time to time.

Hana stretched, then sighed. It was only a few days after that incident, and since then she had only thought about it more and more. It seemed as if she had not trained hard enough, which seriously irked her.

Even though seeing blood isn't really called 'training'.

She lay her head on the counter of the animal shop; she had helped as a part time worker at the clan's pet and ninken supply store, even before Academy. True, she only helped from time to time back then, but she had found it was genuinely fun and had wanted to continue with it. The final push had come from her mother, who was rather enthusiastic about the whole thing, unsurprisingly.

You didn't become the clan head of the Inuzuka by mistreating your ninken, obviously.

It was also rather strange that the girl knew about her name, despite never having talked even once. Maybe she knew about her indirectly, through rollcall or her own friends.

Hana was interrupted mid-yawn as she heard the welcoming tinkle of bells from the front door.

"Welcome, what would you like toda–," she began saying, but stopped midway to give an 'oh' of surprise upon noticing who had walked into the store.

Raising an eyebrow at the interloper, she smiled exasperatedly.

It seemed that her day had just gotten a lot more interesting.

* * *

I didn't really think I'd come back here again, messing with the timeline and all that. While I did say that I will try to change things, it would be advantageous to me if I knew what was going to happen in the future, however spotty my memory may be.

Despite my better judgement, I really wanted to check up on the poor thing. After all my troubles, would a snuggle with a cute ball of fluff be too much to ask?

No?

Stingy people.

I tentatively waved at the amused shopkeeper, who I knew to be Inuzuka Hana, older sister of the troublemaking Kiba.

"Hello, my name is Uchiha Mayue, what's your na-,"

She waved my greeting off sedately. "No need for that, the name's Hana. Inuzuka Hana," she cocked her head to the side slightly, "though you somehow knew about that anyway."

"U-uhm…I like knowing about the people in my class?" I stuttered lamely, not convincing myself nor her in the slightest.

"Riiiiiight," she drawled, soundly clicking the 't', all the while deadpanning, "anyway, you here for silver-chan?"

"Y-yes," mentally berating myself for stuttering again, biting my lip lightly.

That was not good. People getting overly suspicious of me was very much dangerous.

Hana put aside her rather suspicious demeanour, chalking it up to her nervousness from causing a bit of trouble yesterday, not that she minded it; that day had been quite boring. "Come on in. Let's go to the back."

After passing various isles of pet essentials and going through the 'Employees only' door, we arrived at a room that had something like a playpen that wouldn't look the slightest out of place in a nursery, except it was occupied with small ninken, dogs and other canines.

I shouldn't expect any less from the Inuzukas.

Looking around, I didn't see 'silver-chan' anywhere in the room, but looking into the corner of the room, I spotted her curled up in a small bundle of white fluff, no bigger than any baby. I was glad that the cub seemed to be in a much better state than before.

The cub watched with suspicious eyes as I gradually approached it, looking straight into its dark-yellow eyes. I leant down and sat down cross-legged. She lightly growled, hackles raised, as I went to put my hand out, but when it got close enough, she _bit_ me.

How friendly.

The only indication of the pain I was feeling was a rather exaggerated twitch of the eye, not that it didn't hurt. I stamped down my flaring chakra, as lashing out would only provoke her further, and that was exactly the opposite of what I wanted.

"No need to be scared, right? I'm not here to hurt you," I murmured.

A minute passed as she slowly stopped trying to bite the side of my palm off, and blinked, ears drooping slightly. Retracting her teeth, she licked the small punctures on my skin apologetically.

I smiled warmly.

"Oh-ho? She seems to have taken quite a liking to you, you know," spoke up Hana, who had watched the whole thing from the side, "why don't you keep her? She didn't accept any contact from anyone without snapping or biting at them for these past few days. What do you think?"

Looking down, I saw that she'd already nuzzled into my lap and had fell asleep. My mouth twitched up. There really wasn't a choice here, isn't it?

"Nice to meet you…Miyuki."

A contented whine was my only response.

* * *

"You what?" Shisui just gaped at me. "Say that again?"

"I adopted an Artic wolf," I chirped happily as I ate my breakfast. Since my parents were both on different missions in some other part of the Elemental Nations, so naturally I had invited Shisui to eat breakfast with me.

I had one too many mornings back in my old world without anyone to eat with.

He slammed his head on the table. It was too early in the morning for him to deal with this kind of shit. "Mayue."

"What?" I innocuously answered.

He started his habit of rubbing his eyes, I noted. "Why."

"Well, I was going–," I started, but he promptly cut me off.

"It was rhetorical! You can't raise something like that without asking your parents! You are going to return it; I am _not_ going to have them go nuts on me for something that _you _did."

"But–!"

"No buts!"

I puffed up my cheeks. "Shisui-niichan, you're being mean. I haven't done anything noteworthy in the past few days."

I pondered for a bit while he was dealing with a minor internal crisis. What could I do to make him accept that my fluffy companion is going to stay? One must preserve the cuteness after all. "Hey, Shisui. How about a bet?"

He looked up and answered instantly. "No."

"Come on~, you know you want to," I coaxed, undeterred by the swift answer, then an idea hit me, "or else I'll tell Fugaku-san about the Tomato Incident."

His eyes widened. "You wouldn't," he accused half-heartedly.

"Oh, I most definitely would," I smirked gleefully.

It wouldn't be very pretty if she actually told the clan head about one of the largest covered up disasters in the clan, and it would all be on his head because he unofficially 'takes care' of Mayue. He scrunched up his face in dissatisfaction, and finally gave in. "Alright, _fine._ What is it?"

"If I get a hit on you once in a spar, I win, if you get three hits on me, I lose," I listed out.

"What if you win?"

"Guess who gets to keep her," I replied with a sweet smile.

He groaned. "…and if you lose?"

"I consciously try not to cause trouble for the next year."

"Deal," he responded immediately as he made good on his moniker, his whole breakfast disappearing in less than a second, "well, what are you waiting for?"

I grinned, showing maybe a few too many teeth.

_Hook, line and sinker._

* * *

We had relocated to one of the nearby training grounds and had marked out a large circle in the dirt of the clearing we were at.

"One foot outside the circle counts as a disqualification," I called out as we walked to the edges of the circle. A small, discreet alarm clock lay on top of a wooden post, just outside the area.

_Tick._

_Tick._

_Tick. _

The clock's second hand ticked closer and closer to the top of the clockface. I readied my stance, watching Shisui _very _closely. It wouldn't do if he immediately **Shunshin**'ed behind me and took me out before I knew what was going on.

Only a few seconds now.

_Tick._

_Tick_.

The clock made a resounding _clack_ in the quiet clearing, and even the cicadas were silent. Time seemed to dilate as I quickly channelled the chakra to my eyes and legs, leaping out of the way from a few blunt kunai, Sharingan blazing.

Not a second too soon, he appeared exactly where I was just before.

"Good," he smiled cheerfully, "it seems this will be more fun than I thought!"

I scowled. Damn bastard, underestimating me. Flicking my hands through the hand seals for **Shunshin**, I vanished in a blur of speed.

I appeared behind him, but he caught my hand, expression unchanging, fixed in a grin. My eye twitched in annoyance.

"One touch," he intoned, before hastily throwing me across the impromptu arena.

He decided to take the initiative apparently, as he created a bunch of **Zanzō Bunshin** and mixed in with the crowd.

I grit my teeth and quickly spotted him in the quickly approaching horde, which were numerous, but just clones at their core; so my haxor eyes can see vaguely which had chakra coils and which didn't.

Isn't the Sharingan so useful? Problem was, the Sharingan still couldn't perceive things that were faster than it could see, and Shisui was very much able to go faster than I could when I was trying my hardest, I realised.

The difference was just too great for conventional tactics. I would probably never beat him in a speed competition alone, but I had the element of surprise on my side.

I was knocked out of my thoughts as another clone managed to get a second hit on me, my **Kawarimi** being a millisecond too slow.

I cursed.

My momentum from before still carried over though a swap, and I was already outside the bounds of the arena. I threw a kunai with a wire attached to it to wrap around a tree and curve around to land back inside the circle.

"It's my win," Shisui smirked, "now you have to-"

"I never stepped outside the circle!" I panted heavily.

His squawk of indignation seemed distant, my body starting to give out from the exhaustion. My body hadn't forgotten about that bout of chakra exhaustion a few days ago, and now is complaining about not recovering fully.

Damn it.

Not now.

I could really feel the exhaustion of fighting a much more experienced shinobi seriously taking its toll on me. It appeared as if my young pre-teen body wouldn't last for more than one minute, so I decided that it was going to be an all or nothing gamble. There was just not enough time.

Why did I go so far for something like this?

...that's right.

I had decided to change things. _Do_ something. Make a _difference._

How could I say I am was making a difference if I give up here?

Taking a deep breath to stabilise my fluctuating heartbeat, I leapt backwards, landing a few meters up on a nearby tree trunk. Putting my hands in a seal, I gritted my teeth as I poured half of my remaining chakra reserves and _jumped. _The tree cratered as I flew one, five, ten meters above Shisui.

The other Uchiha just blinked. _Since when did academy students know how to do tree walking?_

Regardless, he was a jōnin and didn't get caught off guard very easily. Maybe she just learnt this valuable skill earlier than the others. Uchiha wouldn't allow themselves to be subpar to the rest of them after all, he mused as he flung a few kunai at the airborne kunoichi.

I smirked as I spun around mid-air to avoid the kunai and placed my hand into a familiar cross shaped seal. I'd found out after some testing and fiddling that this hand seal worked especially well to distribute and split my chakra into many different parts, and so I took heavy inspiration from the future Naruto and used it to create a **Kage Bunshin** below me as a springboard to push me higher in the air, while the clone sped downwards towards Shisui.

Shisui just gaped. He was pretty sure academy students were _not_ supposed to know how to make a **Kage Bunshin**. It was a B-ranked kinjutsu for Kami's sake!

Shaking away his astonishment, he dashed at the one he was sure was the real Mayue, the one that was still well above his head.

The real me grinned and threw a training kunai at Shisui while falling. He just moved his head out of the way to dodge when he saw that the younger Uchiha hadn't stopped smiling. He wondered why briefly but instinctively caught a kunai from hitting his back (he's got to earn his title of Jōnin somehow).

He looked behind him and saw that the **Kage Bunshin** I had created earlier had caught the kunai I had thrown and it had slingshot the kunai back to hit Shisui while the clone was still in mid-air.

I landed heavily on my back and oof-ed.

And yet, I still smiled.

_In and out._

_In and out._

Turning his head back towards me, he frowned and started to walk towards me. A fraction of a moment before he was going to touch me, he froze as he felt something touch his back. Shisui whipped his head back and tried to use the kunai he had caught to stab whoever was unfortunate enough to startle him...but there was no kunai in his hand.

In fact, he was touched by said kunai; it was certainly worth getting Naruto to divulge the secrets of **Oiroke No Jutsu**. The kunai had been one of my shadow clones; I had prepared it hours before the match had begun and it had dropped its super-**Henge** once he let his guard down.

After I had caught my breath, I sighed in exhaustion. That was _not_ a soft fall by any standard.

I turned my face towards the gobsmacked teenager and mustered up the evillest smile I could manage in my practically chakra exhausted state, eyes gleaming all the while. "So Shisui-niichan. How 'bout that bet we made?"

His paling face was every bit worth the effort she'd put in.

I smiled and looked up at the passing clouds, body spread-eagled on the grassy ground.

The cicadas are awfully loud today as well, but I don't think it bothers me anymore.

* * *

Later, he admitted that he was taking it easy on me because 'I was just an Academy student'. Revenge was sweet as I kicked his shin.

All in good humour, of course.

* * *

_A/N_: Some vocab to fill you in if you didn't know!

**Zanzō Bunshin **– 'Afterimage Clones',

**Oiroke No Jutsu **– Japanese romanised version of 'Sexy no Jutsu'

ninken – ninja dogs

* - referring to a certain SI/OC fanfic, try and guess what it is~!

* * *

***Miyuki joined the party!***

Miyuki in Japanese can mean 'Beautiful Snow', which is rather fitting in my opinion for a wolf that resides in snow as well. Anyhow, imma go sleep now because this was a hard chapter to write, and exams are still comin', though it's not as tough, thankfully. Thank the log.

_\- Maki-sensei_

* * *

_**YOU'RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT**_


	10. Chapter 9 - Shinobi sorbet

_**Chapter 9 – Shinobi sorbet**_

It was a sunny day with an abundance of fluffy white clouds in the sky, nothing amiss in the hustle and bustle of the late morning market in the centre of Konoha.

You wouldn't know it if you just had a passing glance at the unassuming who stood by one of the many stalls that lined Konoha's streets, but she had ascended into her own small heaven in the last few seconds. Why?

It was because of the diminutive white bun in her two hands, shortly disappearing within seconds. Mayue wouldn't lie, the Uchiha Pride _(the re-indoctrination intensifies)_ wouldn't be allowed to intrude on her thoughts about her favourite food of all time.

Namely, char siu bao, a sweet barbeque-pork-filled bun which was as far as she was concerned, the most important thing in the universe at that moment. This was because she wasn't sure if she'd ever see it again given her circumstances surrounding traversing cosmoses.

'I wonder if there is more dim sum in this world,' she thought dreamily, idly wandering through another set of stalls to perhaps snack on one thing more. It suddenly occurred to her that it was probably not the best idea to go on an eating spree when she could be doing far more productive things than that.

Mayue bit her lower lip in indecision, pausing to think about it for a few seconds before sighing and starting to trudge towards the nearest training grounds. She still had to work on the stability of the **Rasengan**, and a bucketload of other things too. For one, even though she was miles ahead of her class in terms of the lack of needed hand seals for the Academy Three, the time it took for her to internally mould her chakra was substantially longer. That time spent moulding her chakra may be the difference between life and death on the field, so she had resolved herself to improve her control.

She munched on her last bun, this one filled with red bean paste _(sue her, it was tasty)_, still thinking about those hand seals. Recalling the special cross-shaped hand seal that manga-Naruto had used once upon a time made her think. Was there a special meaning behind each seal? Did any one seal have some specific function to make a jutsu work?

It was intriguing to say the least.

Tilting her head in contemplation, she wondered if the stubborn old goat would let her study some books on them, there had to be at least one. They certainly wouldn't be situated in the Genin Library, let alone the Academy section of it either. I mean, what kind of Academy student goes around trying to find the meanings of fundamental concepts like jutsu? Not the normal kind, that was for sure.

It wasn't really such a big surprise since she was so far into her thoughts that she walked face first into a tree. Mayue clutched her stinging nose and glared petulantly at the tree for being…well being a tree. Had it been any other day, she noted annoyedly, she would have at least _noticed_ anything right in front of her. Miyuki whined.

She sighed and crouched down to rub the back of her companion's ear in reassurance. It sometimes surprised her how easily her ninken could quietly disappear from her awareness when willed. It wasn't all that worrying for her, despite that, since Miyuki followed her like a lost puppy; it wasn't all that hard to find her. A quick glance back was all she needed to confirm her presence.

It was like a cute pupper guard dog, you know?

Sighing, she thought back through the previous week. It wasn't the most pleasant one by far, due to the parental fallout shortly after she decided to adopt the young wolf. Mayue did manage to convince them both, to her great relief, though that may have been made easier when she sicced them on Shisui. Gotta keep his promise, or else. She felt some form of responsibility, like a maternal instinct towards taking care of this wolf cub. Mayue couldn't deny that she was very attached to the white canine, even though she had only started to raise it. Cloudy as it may be, she saw herself in the animal.

Immediately after standing up, the sudden spiel of dizziness that afflicted her right after wasn't all too surprising, now that she thought about it.

Really, when was the last time she had stopped to properly rest?

In the year she lived in the Narutoverse, all that she could remember was her frantically practising control, learning the wiles of this new world and an assortment of other things to catch up to her peers. By all means, she should have collapsed long ago, with a child's body and all that. It may have been purely because of the existence of chakra and its mysterious effects on the human body that she hasn't caught any sort of illness. That was what she'd theorised anyway.

She often referred these sorts of cases as 'It's Naruto', and move on.

I mean, nobody can really explain what Naruto does. Naruto is Naruto, nothing more, and since the name of the Narutoverse shares the name with Naruto, all its effects pass on to it as well. Hence, 'It's Naruto.'

Logic.

…It seemed that her workaholic attitude hadn't died away, despite everything. Old habits die hard, I guess. Didn't really help that she used to work in a company that wasn't too gentle on the employees, one of the so called 'black companies'. Wasn't really much of a choice anyway.

"Yue!"

She blinked.

"Ma-yu-e!"

The black-haired girl turned her head to spot a waving person with matching dark hair and red marks(tattoos?) on her face.

"Hana?"

"The one and only," she said energetically, her three ninken bouncing behind her as she jogged towards Mayue. Miyuki nuzzled the slightly older canines in greeting and barked.

Absolutely adorable.

"Sup, whatcha here for?" she said curiously, wondering briefly if she'd recently had offended any clan members with her pranks. It'd be a pity to stop those, pranking was really fun. Of course, she ignored the whispered comments about the 'second coming of _her_'. Wonder who that was.

"Come here, we gotta talk a bit in private!" she said impatiently, a bit rare from her, since Hana sometimes seemed to be more from the Hyūgas than the Inuzukas, as she ushered me towards the nearest Akimichi restaurant. Must be a big deal, getting such a reaction from her, Mayue pondered as they greeted the genial Akimichi at the counter of the restaurant, this being the second visit, and with a bit of luck since it was rather late in the day; restaurants were getting bustlin' and busy, they sat down at a table not too far from the back.

It also helped that there weren't many occupied ninken-and-customer seats. Gotta give them the love that they deserve. In her peripheral vision, she saw Hana take a deep swig of her glass cup.

"Mayue!" Hana said forcefully as she slammed her ordered drink (was that alcohol?) on the table, eying Mayue dangerously, completely ignoring the strange looks and whispers that were sent their way.

Oh dear.

In her mind Mayue had already started raising DEFCON 2 flags and was getting ready for a full-on emergency. The Uchiha knew an angry Hana was a scary Hana. It also spelt someone pettily glaring kunai into your skull during most lessons, many refusals via a sticking-out-tongue, and as such, it was of the utmost importance she'd try to avoid that. But…you know; scary Hana.

"Have you been holding out on me?!" the apparently irate Inuzuka paused. "No wait, I know you have been holding out on me."

The recipient, i.e. Mayue, who was actually being shaken by the shoulders, was still completely lost here, if you didn't notice. I doubt you did.

"Uh…whu-what?" she replied in a panicked daze, "what's the problem?" Had anyone looked closely enough, one would almost see spinning spirals in her eyes.

"You didn't tell me you were so far ahead in the school curriculum!" she exclaimed dejectedly, "and, y'know, being your friend and all I was a bit upset because you didn't tell me…"

This was all ignored by the three dogs and one wolf, who had decided to bunch up and make a dog(?)pile-totem-thingy of cuteness.

"Hana, we're going to be _ninja_. You know, the people who have probably hoarded more secrets than your dodgy old neighbour two blocks away." The Uchiha was rather proud of herself right now, as she spoke these words with her face down, head on both hands as she tried to steady her tilting world. Oh, and try not to throw up. That was important.

Damn if Hana didn't inherit her mother's strength.

"Right…still! Can you teach me the tree walking thing?"

"Well, I guess…"

"Thank you!" she practically _glowed_ with excitement, not that she showed it much. Mayue saw Hana as more of a _serene_, _mother_-type person, the kind you'd find at a hospital or vet. "Can I call you Yucchan?"

"Sure," she said readily, before blinking. _W__ait, isn't this supposed to be _really_ significant? Like, you-would-take-you-time-to-think-about-changing-how-you-address-someone significant?*_

"That was fast, thanks then Yucchan," she waved as she quickly left the vicinity, "gotta help mom now at the shop, let's learn that walking-thing after the Academy ends!"

Mayue quietly sipped her fruit juice, while reiterating her opinions on the Inuzukas; they were all like mini tornadoes, forces of nature, every single one of them. She sighed; she knew more than her fair share of forces-of-nature.

* * *

Across town Naruto sneezed, hanging precariously from one of the many tips of the Nidaime's stony spiky hair. "Wonder who's talking about me this time," he muttered as he applied another layer of 'supa-permanent-extra-thicc™' paint.

* * *

The echoing click-clack of the sliding door opening rang throughout the silent house. The Uchiha slipped out of her footwear and stretched, letting out a moan of relief; she had felt so stiff after sitting at the restaurant, not having time to properly stretch her muscles and instead wanted nothing more than to relax for the day, especially after being scolded with Naruto for 'various misconducts' and the such.

Unfortunately, life had other plans.

She nearly had a metaphorical heart attack when a pale-white masked figure appeared right in front of her, both arms behind their back in a pose eerily similar to the Sandaime when he stood in front of his window in the Hokage Tower.

"You have an appointment with the Commander," he intoned, while the two holes in his/her mask that looked like they could bore right into your soul.

Oh shit.

This was bad. This was very bad; actually, it was so bad she wasn't sure how it could get worse. Not many people came out alive if they were to meet with the person who had his own flipping _secret_ _mindless drone army, _a.k.a. the scummiest politician in the Elemental Nations; Danzo.

Miyuki had started to circle around her feet, growling as her hackles raised. Mayue decided to try the diplomatic route, all the while thinking of an escape plan or _something_ as quick as she could.

"Please, uh, could you cancel the appointment?"

The ROOT ANBU repeated its message, just as tonelessly as before, before adding, "he said to 'bring her to me using any means necessary.'"

Nononononono. I'd rather not meet a dodgy old man that kidnaps children on a daily basis for his weird fetishes.

"Thank you but no thank you!" she yelled, her red eyes flickering, silently hoping for any kind of help from her cry as she moved her arms to form a handseal.

It was over far too fast.

Before she knew it, she felt a blinding blow against her neck and the world seemed to tilt and start to slide away, darkness ruthlessly invading the edges of her vision. She barely managed to catch her faithful companion also get knocked out, falling to the ground with a thud. Mayue briefly managed to laugh mirthlessly at her own idiocy; did she really believe that she could escape someone who was probably better than most chūnin?

She should've known better; even if she could be considered a borderline genin, due to her advantage of a dōjutsu, there was a gulf of difference between that and a chūnin.

"No, Miyuki…damn it…" she cursed as she fell unconscious, her body slumping to a heap on the ground.

The masked ANBU picked her prone body up and **Shunshin**ed away, leaving nothing but an unconscious wolf cub as evidence that there was something amiss.

Distant voices could be heard, gradually getting louder and louder.

"…and you see, she went ahead and learnt the tree-walking exercise, all by herself! I felt so left out!" one voice exclaimed.

"Is that so?" another one laughed.

"Oh look, isn't that Miyuki?"

"Leave her alone, she must be tired or something; she's still a cub so let her rest," a gruff voice recommended.

"Well, we are a bit behind schedule but let's get this surprise party set up!" called out the head with the familiar black bun of hair.

"Right, Uchiha-san!" the rest of the voices responded, a few 'Hn's could be heard as well.

"Nee-chan will be so happy, I bet that she will smile!" one voice, far louder than the rest, proclaimed, "and then she'll finally teach me that cool jutsu!"

The sound of a clear whack was accompanied by a short scolding by someone who had their ear a bit too close for comfort.

"Well, don't just _sit_ there! Let's get preparing!"

Despite however many hours would pass, however many hours spent waiting, the party girl would never turn up.

* * *

_A/N_: Some vocab to fill you in if you didn't know!

_dim sum_ – this isn't exactly Japanese, if you didn't know. Ahem, _"Dim sum is a style of Chinese cuisine prepared as small bite-sized portions of food served in small steamer baskets or on a small plate."_ \- Wikipedia

* - In Japanese society, it is common to refer to someone with their surname and the suffix '-san'. Changing how you address someone can show different levels of intimacy with said person. For example, if I'd said your first name without a suffix in Japan, and it is the first time I had ever met you, it would be considered weird and very rude.

* * *

Wow. Just wow.

We've hit 50 favourites, and 100 follows! Thank you so much for investing your time in reading my story, I really hope you keep on enjoying it! And yes, on a side note, I still have no idea what I'm doing :P.

_\- Maki-sensei _

P.S. – incidentally, one of my favourite foods is from dim sum cuisine. What a coincidence. (_the SI-ness intensifies_)

P.S. 2 – I do apologise for the long delay; I've had exams bombarding the front door of my psyche for the last few months and couldn't find the will to write. I've actually had another one yesterday so I'm just going to curl up and cry quietly in my corner of the internet, licking my wounds. Have a good day! ;) (can you see the tears of blood and pain in that smiley face? Can you?)

* * *

_**YOU'RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT**_


	11. Chapter 10 - Perseverance

_**Chapter 10 – Perseverance**_

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shittt.

I had awoken to the sudden jolt of movement and had immediately reacted. Or tried to; I was trussed up like last Christmas's chicken on a bad day; I wasn't amused. I observed my surroundings with a critical eye; dark, aged concrete walls encroached upon a beaten and cracked floor, and in the centre of all of this was a small staircase leading up to a throne of stone.

And upon said throne sat the person who I considered the biggest asshole in my life at this point. It didn't help at all that he was smirking. What, did he also have a _shibari_ fetish?

His face settled into a neutral expression as he announced, "to business then. Uchiha Mayue, you have been brought forth to-"

"What do you want, you molesting child-kidnapper?" I snapped, my patience worn thin. Was this some kind of twisted joke to him?

The following awkward silence that ensued as his eyebrow above his only visible eye slowly raised in surprise was uncomfortable. He stared harder at me, and his eye seemed to start to glint manically, a very bad sign; every time I had ever encountered ninja who had that same madness in their eyes, something had gone very wrong. Oh no, I completely understood that it was that same madness is what kept them sane, however paradoxical that sounded, but I never, ever want to be on the receiving end of that stick.

It was like asking Maito Gai for an 'intense workout', when his 'normal' workout would push more than half of the total Konoha ninja force to the brink of insanity.

It was deeply unsettling to see that same glint in the old coot's eye.

"Good," he mused, "it seems that this one has some spunk." He lifted his cane and brought it down.

The resounding clack on the solid concrete echoed through the unimaginably numerous tunnels.

It sounded like a death sentence.

"Let's see how long you last."

* * *

A frown a touch too mature for his age tinged the expression of one Uzumaki Naruto. It was worrying; his nee-chan had disappeared without a trace, not even the slightest indication of where she disappeared to. It was even her birthday!

That was two days ago.

She hadn't turned up the day after, nor the day after that. Her classroom seat remained empty; her spot vacant beneath the tree.

Something had happened; Naruto could feel it. His serious expression deepened; what was this unsettling feeling?

"Hey, Naruto! Pay attention!" an irate Iruka waved his pointing stick at the aforesaid person. Naruto barely even registered that he was being scolded.

He decided to go and walk home with Sasuke, to ask him if he'd seen their neechan. He would not call the teme 'teme' if it meant knowing that she was okay.

Of course, you already know that the questions would remain unanswered, the interrogations fruitless.

And so, third day ticked by.

* * *

Meditating.

That was all she had been doing for the last few..days? Weeks? Hours?

She couldn't tell anymore since her time perception was so skewed from the lack of any sort of sunlight, all she had was a flickering lightbulb that was always a bit too bright that she couldn't even turn off herself. Jerks.

Feeling her chakra circulate her body was also soothing, in addition to increasing her reserves of chakra.

During her time meditating, Mayue had started thinking about how to get out of this predicament, coming up with plans that varied from trying to escape during a mission, to attempting to knock out another ROOT agent. The latter was as unlikely to succeed as before and she had quickly discarded it.

All she could see was four blank, monotonous walls and a door consisting of metal bars that were surely reinforced by some kind of seal. Danzo wouldn't be so careless with these kinds of things; he was a meticulous man that didn't let many things go unnoticed, she would admit that.

She gritted her teeth. So, he was going to wait her out. When she is reaches her most desperate point, he will be there to pounce on her weakness, like an overgrown vulture.

And it would repeat again and again and again and _again_, until every last defence had broken before him. Danzo had no use for disloyal dogs after all.

Sucks to be him; she wasn't going to let that happen. Mayue had promises to keep, people to protect, and a life to live. One prehistoric geezer with a smidgen too much power wasn't going to stand in the way of that.

A vague splattering of words floats to the top of her consciousness; it was a quote, from a movie watched late at night, with a warm blanket and popcorn at her side. It was something she had kept in the recesses of her mind, for some strange reason, but she was glad she did.

_"…At some point, everything's gonna go south on you and you're going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That's all it is. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem and you solve the next one, and then the next. And If you solve enough problems, you get to come home."_

And so it began; 'the Great Breakout' plan.

* * *

The seals on the walls as well were no joke as well; every side was filled with hidden seals that absorbed any chakra channelled into it, making any sort of Doton jutsu that allows movement through earth useless, and would even probably absorb my incomplete **Rasengan**.

What do I have to work with?

I started to list any and all the jutsu I know; the Academy Three, my incomplete **Rasengan**, and **Kage Bunshin**.

The absence of any sort of elemental jutsu is painfully noticeable now, I feel like I should work on that if I get out. Wait, no, positive thoughts. I will get out.

Right, next question, what is stopping me from escaping?

The walls are seal-reinforced concrete and the door is made of metal bars that also have seals all over them, in fact I had gotten a rather nasty shock after trying to pry it open. It was safe to say that I wasn't going to attempt that again, with such a literal punishment from struggling to escape. Additionally, just to rub even more salt on the metaphorical wound, there were chakra suppression seals that sucked out my chakra until I only had just above the bare minimum to _live_.

I don't think I could even _cast_ any jutsu at all like this.

Every so often a ROOT agent came along to check the one permanent agent standing outside at all times, which meant that there was always a chance I was being observed.

…what other things were there? That couldn't be it; if so then I cannot escape at all.

I have my coin pouch? Super useful, right?

…oh right, my red genetic haxor eyes. Can't I do some weird super-genjutsu with them? That would be so useful in pranking anyone who is not an Uchiha or Hyūga.

Wait, super-genjutsu?

A smile crept across my face; it would seem that a plan has been formed.

* * *

It was a pretty normal day in ROOT agent #152's opinion, as he stood to attention in front of cell #13. All his orders encompassed keeping an eye on this new recruit. It wouldn't be long before she became an agent too; they all never lasted long.

He swept through the room again for the fifth time this hour, and saw that the subject had fell asleep, on the standard ROOT bed. They never knew that they were being acclimated at this stage. Danzo-sama makes this all so efficient, he is the best commander we could have.

So deep in his thoughts revering 'Danzo-sama', he didn't notice a slight haze blanket his consciousness and started when he realised that Danzo-sama had appeared without notice, walking sedately towards the cell he was stationed at. He briefly wondered why he couldn't sense his commander's chakra at all beforehand, but he quickly dismissed it as the commander's skill as a shinobi.

He stood to attention, greeting Danzo with the standard ANBU salute.

"Your orders, commander?"

Danzo glanced towards the kneeling agent before saying, "open the cell. I'm training her."

"Yes, sir!" the ANBU saluted once more, quickly retrieving the keys stowed within one of his pouches and promptly unlocked the door.

The ROOT agent couldn't suppress the brief feeling of jealousy, before it faded to an apathetic background of monotony. It was strange; he shouldn't be feeling…anything really. He resolved to go through the remedial training again.

Once again, the agent failed to realise that one, Danzo hadn't moved an inch, and two, the prisoner who was supposed to be going with said commander hadn't left the cell.

The resultant chop to the unaware neck from these factors was very satisfying, in Mayue's opinion. The crumpled body was quickly placed inside the cell and onto the bed. A quick application of genjutsu and he looked identical to the previous occupant of the cell.

She was very vindictive when it came to revenges (and revenge pranks), she would admit that much.

* * *

Where was she?

She couldn't tell after running through tunnel after tunnel after tunnel. At this point she was sorely tempted to just blast away the whole thing and get to the surface. If she even could, that is.

Time was running out, if her parched throat and groaning stomach were any indication. _'A human adult can go two days without water_._' _

She'd imagine that the deadline would be more like four or five days considering the weird properties chakra had, but she was not tempted to find out if that was true.

Flashing her Sharingan again briefly, to get a view of her surroundings; in the pitch-black darkness, it was really the only way to see. Mayue resolved to rest for a short while before going down another lengthy tunnel, her legs were really starting to cramp, despite her circulating newly regenerated chakra through the muscles. It was a trick that any ninja worth their salt knew about, temporarily improving the power and recovery of the muscles.

It was no more than that though, and didn't directly help growing and training the muscles, you'd still need to train for that.

The Sharingan, despite its considerably lower chakra cost in the hands of Uchihas, still did take a good chunk out of her reserves whenever she activated them, and it was wearing her down more than she'd like. Mayue started messing around with the chakra as she channelled it around, about, as a frame, and through her eyes, when suddenly the world seemed to brighten slightly.

She grinned; it was fun figuring out how to break the laws of physics with such a mysterious force. Screw you, random scientists who make rules that I _destroy. _Focusing on the feeling that she had when the world brightened, she slowly raised the visibility of her surroundings until she could see. Like, she could see that random moss clump in the corner of that intersection that was just a short walk ahead.

Letting the remaining chakra trickle away and back into her coils from the back of her eyes, she relaxed. Someone must have already made this kind of thing already; how would any ninja be able to see in such dark conditions at night without this? That said, she felt like she still could improve on the concept.

She wondered if that if you didn't see any colours you could react faster to things because the brain has less stuff to process? Pouring a trickle of chakra into her retinas until she could reasonable see her surroundings, she started to mess with chakra again, and repeated the same process; she channelled it around, about, as a frame and lens and lo and behold; her eyes seemed to filter out certain colours depending on how much chakra she poured into it; the more she channelled, the less colours of the spectrum she could see.

It was absolutely awesome seeing the world as just shades of black and white, with huge swathes of grey in between. She decided to call it '**Ninp****ō: Isshoku Me**' because it sounded badass. It also felt badass; she felt like she could react almost twice as fast without colours.

Liberating as it was, her stomach was getting steadily more unsettled, and her body demanded water for the umpteenth time. Time to move on.

* * *

The light that met her eyes was equally elating as blinding, since she still had her bright-eye jutsu on. Scowling at her burning retinas, she stumbled out of a hidden opening in a Hashirama tree.

Good, she was near Konoha then.

She walked, and walked, and walked. She also had to run a bit from the local wildlife; she didn't have an ounce of energy to spare to fight in the first place. Kami knows how she did it, but she managed to get onto a worn road, small enough not to be a main road, but big enough to be a trade route.

Laughing in relief, she reached the side of the road and promptly collapsed.

_She'd made it._

* * *

_"It seems that Candidate #1024 has passed the first trial."_

_"So it has. Keep an eye on that one; it seems different from the rest..."_

_"...understood."_

...

..

.

* * *

_A/N_: Some vocab to fill you in if you didn't know!

**Ninp****ō: Isshoku Me** – literally means 'Ninja Art: Monochrome Eye' – because why not.

_shibari_ – 'Kinbaku (緊縛) means "tight binding," while Kinbaku-bi (緊縛美) literally means "the beauty of tight binding." Kinbaku is a Japanese style of bondage or BDSM, and the term _shibari_ can be used interchangeably with kinbaku.' – Wikipedia

* * *

Sharingan is such a hack, I swear. Also, did you notice I made this in three days?! Super-fast-updates :DD

_\- Maki-sensei _

* * *

_**YOU'RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT**_


	12. Chapter 11 - 7 times down, 8 times up

_**Chapter 11 – Seven times down, eight times up**_

Oi. What kind of joke is this, kami?

I didn't ask to escape, only to be nabbed from the side of a meandering path and be _captured_ as a _slave_.

What _do_ you want from me?

It felt strangely nostalgic, being tied up, _again_, now in a moving carriage of people. All of which were girls or women, when I swept the dark, dank space with the bright-eye jutsu.

…only females?

I didn't like where this was going in the slightest; frankly I could bust out right here, right now with my nifty temporary physical ability boost and rip right out of these flimsy bonds of rope, but that wouldn't help these poor souls being shipped to who-knows-where.

Especially that sad adorable little chibi that sat in the innermost corner of the cart.

Damnit, I knew I had a soft spot for cute things.

This also felt weirdly personal, being in such a cramped space with people who were going to suffer the same fate. It just didn't feel right; they all had that look in eyes, the visage of someone who has already given up on whatever freedom they had.

I figure that wherever this is going, there will be more people who are in similar situations like this; be it kidnapped or blackmailed.

…damnit, whatever. I'll just deal with the fallout afterwards; time to prepare for the inevitable conflict I guess. I never really was somebody who sat down and did nothing; if there was something to do, I would do it. I stand by my words.

"Do you know where we are going?" I murmured to the woman who sat next to me, her slightly larger appearance indicating that she was at least a few years older than me, with tanned skin and caramel brown eyes.

She turned her weary gaze upon me, then sighed.

"You're unlucky, hun. We're all on the highway to hell."

Well I certainly was, with what my profession was, but I wasn't about to tell this woman about my real identity.

"Cool yeah, great, where to?" My dismissive tone caused her to stare in shock at my reaction. Not a surprise since mere slave drivers shouldn't be a problem for a genin; they even get missions to exterminate whole camps of bandits sometimes!

"You ain't afraid of anything, aren'tcha?" she cackled, a smile spreading across her face, "the name's Suzu. You?"

"Mayue, and as I was saying-"

"The Land of Water. Kirigakure. We were," she spat this part out, loud enough for everyone to hear, but not one person reacted. "_Sold_, ha, what a joke. We were sold to the Gato Corporation."

Gato. Gato. Ga-to.

…who was Gato again? Kinda remember his name floating around somewhere in my memories, give me a moment.

…

Ah, that guy! The slime ball that tried to scam Zabuza and Haku! He was, what, the head of a big company that was a bit too cocky and got killed?

Well, in any case, I'll just see what's up at the next stop and take actions as necessary.

Piece of scum, I say, selling _slaves_. Ugh.

"You aight, Mayue-san?"

I gave the default Uchiha affirmative #3; a slightly higher pitched 'Hn'. And yes; the Uchiha have so many different 'Hn's that they need numbers to keep track of all of them. One adept at Uchihanese is truly a diligent student or is a real Uchiha.

"Let me introduce ya to the rest of the lot," she grinned with not much vigor, but it was enough to brighten the mood in the cart. "Now, this little tyke is called…"

* * *

The rest of the trip was as uneventful as you'd think in a secure and guarded envoy. That's right, the little punk had bought _guards_ to prevent any escapes from happening, and what's more, they were also real shinobi. Well, just genin, but you know; once you have your hitai-ate, you were a real ninja, or so they said.

Still don't understand the alcohol law in the Elemental Nations.

Anyhow, apparently we were escorted to a small settlement not too far off from Kirigakure, according to the not-so-subtle whispering of the genin whinging on about how _long_ this mission took.

The image of professionalism, I'm sure.

We were then unceremoniously thrown into a large cage-esque room, complete with literally nothing. No, I mean bareboned to the extreme, absolutely nothing apart from the four walls of metal bars and the unyielding straw mats beneath.

I also really did not like the looks that the predominantly male population of the camp sent towards us. Yeah, scrap that, I'm moving the plan forwards to _tonight_. I worry that if I act too late, we will collectively be very screwed.

…pun not intended.

The lecherous grins that the men guarding the cell as they uncuffed us from the chafing bonds of rope were unsettling to say the least.

Thank kami we were unbound; it would make the plan a lot harder to execute with people being immobile and such. I had got a rough map of the place from looking at where we moved within the camp and had subtly recorded the directions with my eye-camera-thing.

Kishimoto must've been high on _something_ when making this hax eyes thing; it was so unfair it was laughable. Well, not that having a dōjutsu made you all powerful; Naruto had beaten down that kind of ideology countless times in the anime and manga. No need for me to be arrogant or get a big head over having an advantage over other people.

…why do I feel I have just accomplished something not many dōjutsu wielders have done?

* * *

Across the Elemental Nations, nearly all users of all kinds of fancy-eyes-haxing sneezed simultaneously.

* * *

Must be just me. Well, it is about late evening, let's introduce the plan and see how it goes.

"Everyone, could I please have your attention?"

* * *

The good majority of the women and girls had agreed to go through with my plan, or they did when I showed them a few tricks, like the **Rasengan**. Needless to say that was enough credibility to convince them. My plan was this; break out and run like all hell.

Simple, right?

…okay stop giving me that look. In theory Kirigakure should be incredibly strapped for ninja forces as they are currently in a _civil war_. Following? Therefore, if we break out and run, nobody should come after us as they literally _can't_. They don't have the numbers to do so.

Only issue is that I don't know if those few genin are still hanging around. They are the only wild card in my plan; bandits of these calibre don't deserve to even stand next to an Academy student.

Well, act first, think second, cuddle this cutie third. Ah yes, the little girl who sat in the corner of the cart we were in, equipped with the most devastating puppy-eyes in existence. Can't disappoint anyone at this point anyway.

Let's do this.

* * *

Hito had just graduated from the Kirigakure Academy and was allocated to a team. Unfortunately, this team was not new, and he was just the replacement.

It was Hito's first day on the job with his new team, who were considerably stronger than himself. They had apparently 'lost' their comrade after a failed Chūnin exam. It was unspoken, but very clear to him that if he failed he would also mysteriously disappear as well.

Additionally, it didn't help that the Mizukage had a cruel smile on (or so he thought) when he assigned a newly reformed team a C-rank.

All of this culminated into a very nervous wet-behind-the-ears genin.

It was on his turn during his patrol of the camp when he heard suspicious scuffles from the prisoner cage as he passed by. He stopped to observe but…nothing seemed to be out of place?

Hito muttered something about being too high-strung and that everything will be fine. He didn't notice the twenty or so people sneaking right by him under a genjutsu, nor the people who were 'inside' the cage were occasionally flickering among the more solid ones.

He just shrugged and carried on patrolling.

Obliviousness is the best kind of blissfulness.

* * *

The first sign that something had gone wrong to Futsu, was that a flare of chakra had appeared in the eastern sector of the small village.

Quickly darting towards the suspicious spike of chakra, he leapt gracefully from roof to makeshift roof. He came face to face with an illusion he dispelled as quickly as he'd arrived. His normally composed face crumpled into an unsightly expression. It seemed that their mission had been compromised. Despite that, his lips curled into a poisonous smile.

It seemed that he had some toys to play with.

* * *

"Mayue-sama," one of the older women panted as they ran further and further away from the settlement, "how…how much more do we need to run?"

It had been a short few minutes after I had forcefully opened the lock via a rather half-hearted **Rasengan** to bite through the flimsy lock. A bit overkill, and maybe not the most discreet choice but whatever.

I briefly considered the possibilities about where we should head next, rather distractedly as I _was_ holding a rather large area genjutsu while moving. My fancy-eyes really helped in casting it, though they didn't make it completely easy.

Only my weirdly good chakra control was keeping up this façade.

Luck wasn't on my side, unfortunately, as a very large hail of shuriken came raining down from the heavens. What, was today's forecast a helping of kunai with a side of shuriken? Count me out.

Even if I could dodge this wave of very pointy objects, my companions could not, and I was stuck in a very bad dilemma. I couldn't very much just up and leave them, you know?

This caused me to come to the realisation that I practically had no defensive jutsu whatsoever, something I will be certainly fixing later on.

But anyway, focusing on the present, we were very much in trouble. I quickly activated my passive **Isshoku Me** jutsu and turned on my Sharingan to buy some time and think. If you had noticed I called my Sharingan by its actual name, not 'fancy-eyes', 'hax-eyes' or any variant of that.

That's how serious it was.

The colour seeped out from my vision as the world turned grey, the kunai slowing down to just below a sixth of its previous speed.

I hurriedly ran through my admittedly short list of jutsu and think of any way I could slip out of this situation.

**Kagebunshin**? No, that would just delay the inevitable with that kind of durability.

**Rasengan**? Might as well be as useful as a pile of rocks with how large the radius in which something gets obliterated; I also don't think I can pull off a Naruto and make an **Oodama Rasengan** right now either, my version isn't even properly mastered yet!

**Bunshin**, **Shunshin**, ditto ditto!

Argh, what should I do!

…wait. What was the limit on **Kawarimi** again? Pretty sure that Iruka did never say there was a strict _limit_, but that means it's proportional to chakra spent and the size and distance of what is swapped…

No. It wasn't feasible; I'd probably die before I would even finish swapping half of the people here.

Too late now; it's only about 10 meters away now.

Were there no other options?

…I'll have to gamble it.

I put my hands in the tiger seal and **Shunshin**'ed to the kunais that were going to hit the nearest girl, and caught them, chucking the now-caught kunai at the other kunai that were descending on our escaping group, changing their trajectory and making them miss.

This happened dozens upon dozens of times per second, showering the small clearing in a bath of sparks. Shunshin, catch, deflect, repeat.

_Clink. Thunk. Scrrch. _

Again, and again and again.

I wasn't perfect, of course, as I received countless nicks and cuts from each kunai I couldn't make in time. A small price, if you will, for saving these lives. This may be merely things that you have heard before, but I don't just do this to satisfy the masochistic messiah-esque tendencies of Kishimoto's fucked up world, but I do this for my selfish desire; the desire to change things and make this world somewhat better, however small the impact I make.

So I don't need to look over the death and carnage and know that it was all my fault, that I had once again failed.

In the end, when all the waves of glittering black had buried themselves into one thing or another, the clearing looked like someone had blown up a bomb of projectiles, with small windows that were free of kunai.

And I stood in the middle of all of it, half-alive but alive nonetheless. For my troubles I had also gotten a kunai to the shoulder and stomach, which were a teeny-tiny bit of a problem.

…Alright I was bleeding out at a fast pace. It was probably going to be fatal if I didn't do anything.

It also didn't help that I had spent nearly every drop of chakra **Shunshin**ing around, despite my abnormally good chakra control; that showed how much I was **Shunshin**ing.

Chakra control is essentially a person's control over their Chakra Ratio.

Chakra Ratio is the ratio of physical energy and spiritual energy that is made into chakra; this changes on a person to person basis but if the ratio is off from the optimum ratio, then the excess energy is wasted. For example, if I had an optimum ratio of 1:1, and I put 47%:53%, physical energy and spiritual energy respectively, I would have wasted 6% of my spiritual energies because they had no physical energy to mix with. This excess energy usually turns up as smoke; the more control over your chakra meant less smoke to alert your enemies that you have done something.

This was the _useful_ stuff I learnt in Iruka's class, wonder how much more powerful Naruto could've been if he had just listened. Well, he may have also been constantly sabotaged by the education system because he couldn't properly _read_ basic kanji. When I found out about that, if it weren't Shisui or Itachi to stop me, some chūnin may have became some not-so-alive chūnin.

I think I like this guy even more!

…alright, being honest here, my body was in no kind of shape to be fighting anymore. If anything, I could only rely on relatively average taijutsu to get me past this. My chakra levels didn't allow anything more taxing than that. I also was suffering from severe chakra strain, I could tell.

It was like pipes; overexert them and they will stress and break. The only way to get over this would be to train your chakra network to be able to handle heavy loads, though the chakra coils hold nearly all of a person's chakra at any given time, so that part of the chakra circulatory system will always be most suited to dealing with stresses upon the chakra network. Makes me wonder what insane training Gai and Lee go through to be able to deal with the strains of opening the Hachimon.

Anyhow, the body took time to repair such injuries as mine.

Time I didn't have.

It felt like someone had piled a ton of bricks on every bloody inch of my body. It was no great surprise when I got walloped without me even noticing that someone had been there. This repeated a few times as multiple bruises began to blossom beneath my skin.

My consciousness had started to fade as well.

That wasn't good, not at all.

I stumbled.

No, bad.

Stay awake, delay him enough so that they can get away.

Look here.

He struck me again, looking disappointed. I'm sure I'd be after that grand display of saving over twenty people.

In the end he was just toying with me. Nothing more than a broken figurine.

But I didn't stay down.

Every time I fell, a small voice deeply rooted in my heart spoke a simple phrase again, and again, and again.

"Don't break your promises."

I had promised myself I would do something, didn't I? What am I doing here, being beat around like a rag doll?

Nothing was ever gained from doing nothing.

As I fell for the seventh time, I stopped my descent just before hitting the ground by planting my hand of the ground, using the momentum to whirl around and counterattack when he had his guard down. He staggered after my sloppily performed chakra-enhanced kick _slammed_ against his jaw. That was for the rain of kunai on the innocent people.

I knew that wasn't enough to down someone who was practically in perfect condition, as indicated by his snarling face as he staggered back.

That's okay, I still had one more bone to pick with this guy.

Smiling grimly as I brought my body around with my kick, and his eyes widened, spotting a small spinning ball in my right hand, cocked as if ready to punch him.

"Nighty night."

I slammed the miniaturised **Rasengan** into his stomach with the last vestiges of my strength, propelling him to smash into the nearest tree, splinters flying everywhere from the force of the impact. _That_ was for the beatdown, asshat. He wasn't getting up from a **Rasengan**, in any form, unless he could do one better than _Kabuto_, which I highly doubt.

Stumbling, I squeezed my blurry eyes closed, then opened them in hopes of clearing my swimming vision. Evident from the high-pitched ringing in my ears, it wasn't enough to appease my body though, as it finally gave in and collapsed in a small, mossy clearing.

People swarmed my prone body, who though, I couldn't tell. Oh well, I'm doing this fainting thing a lot lately, maybe I should take a break after this…

And the world went dark.

* * *

_A/N_: Shinobi Dictionary

_hitai_-_ate_ – Shinobi headband in Naruto. Literally means 'forehead guard'.

_hachimon_ – literally meaning 'Eight Gates'. "_The Eight Gates are eight specific tenketsu along the chakra pathway system. The Eight Gates exist in order to limit the flow of chakra within an individual's body. Ordinarily, individuals can use no more than 20% of their body's full potential, the brain's way of protecting the individual from harming their body through overexertion. With training, individuals can learn to remove these limiters, referred to as "opening" the gates."_ -Naruto Wiki.

'seven times down, eight times up' - _"Japanese proverb '七転び八起' (Nanakorobi yaoki), meaning: When life knocks you down, stand back up."_ \- Wikipedia.

* * *

I did some super-fast updates with Chap9-10 so gimme a break ;-;. Might go rewatch Naruto Season 1 later to brush up on some canonical knowledge; fanon is getting me confused ;[

_\- Maki-sensei _

* * *

_**YOU'RE GONNA WRITE A REVIEW**_


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